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THE HOBO

THE SOCIOLOGY OF THE HOMELESS MAN

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS

THE BAKER AND TAYLOR COMPANY, NEW YORK
THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, LONDON
THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA, TOKYO
THE MISSION BOOK COMPANY, SHANGHAI

HE HOB

THE SOCIOLOGY OF THE
HOMELESS MAN

By NELS ANDERSON

A STUDY PREPARED FOR THE CHICAGO
COUNCIL OF SOCLA.L AGENCIES UNDER
THE DIRECTION OF THE COMMITTEE
ON HOMELESS MEN

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
CHICAGO ' ILLINOIS

COMPOSED AND PRINTED BY

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, U.S.A.

EDITOR'S PREFACE

THE present volume is intended to be the first of
a series of studies of the urban community and
of city Hfe. The old familiar problems of our com-
munal and social life — poverty, crime, and vice —
assume new and strange forms under the conditions
of modern urban existence. Inherited custom, tradi-
tion, all our ancient social and political heritages —
human nature itself — have changed and are changing
under the influence of the modern urban environ-
ment.

The man whose restless disposition made him a
pioneer on the frontier tends to become a "homeless
man*' — a hobo and a vagrant — in the modern city.
From the point of view of their biological predisposi-
tions, the pioneer and the hobo are perhaps the
same temperamental type; from the point of view of
their socially acquired traits, they are something
quite different.

The city, more than any other product of man's
genius and labors, represents the efl^ort of mankind to
remake the world in accordance with its wishes, but
the city, once made, compels man to conform to the
structure and the purposes he himself has imposed
upon it. If it is true that man made the city,
it is quite as true that the city is now making
man. That is certainly a part of what we mean
when we speak of the "urban*' as contrasted with
the "rural" mind. In any case, it is true that within
the circle of these two tendencies, man's disposition,

EDITOR'S PREFACE

on the one hand, to create a world in which he can
live, and, on the other, to adapt himself to the world
which he himself has created, all, or most all of the
problems and the processes are included with which
the student of society is positively concerned. These
processes go on, and these problems arise everywhere
that men, coming together in order to live, find them-
selves compelled to carry on a common and com-
munal life. In cities, however, and particularly in
great cities, where social life is more intense than
elsewhere, the processes produce new and strange
effects, and the problems are more poignant and
pressing.

A changing population of from 30,000 to 75,000
homeless men in Chicago, living together within the
area of thirty or forty city blocks, has created a
milieu in which new and unusual personal types
flourish and new and unsuspected problems have
arisen.

If the city were to be identified, as it sometimes
has been, with its mere physical structure, its build-
ings, streets, street railways, telephones, and other
communal efficiencies; if the city were, in fact, a
mere complex of mechanical and administrative
devices for realizing certain clearly defined pur-
poses, the problem of the city would be one of
engineering and of administration merely. But this
takes no account of human nature; it takes no
account of what we have come to refer to in industry
as the "problem of personnel.'' At least it seems
to assume that the individual men and women for
whom these organized agencies — economic, social,
and political — exist, and by whom they are con-
ducted, remain, in all their varied associations and

EDITOR^S PREFACE

vii

relations, practically the same. Recent observa-
tion, on the other hand, has led to the conclusion
that human nature, as we ordinarily understand it,
while it is based on certain fundamental but not
clearly definable human traits and predispositions,
is very largely a product of the environment, and
particularly the human environment in which the
individual happens to find himself. That means
that every community, through the very character of
the environment which it imposes upon the individ-
uals that compose it, tends to determine the personal
traits as it does determine the language, the vocation,
social values, and, eventually, the personal opinions,
of the individuals who compose it.

It is the purpose of this and the succeeding studies
in this series to describe the changes that are taking
place in the life of the city and its peoples, and to
investigate the city's problems in the light of these
changes, and conditions of life generally of urban
people. For this reason, this study of the "homeless
man" has sought to see him, first of all, in his own
habitat; in the social milieu which he has created
for himself within the limits of the larger com-
munity by which he is surrounded, but from which
he is, in large part, an outcast.

It is interesting to notice that within the area of
his own social environment, the hobo has created, or
at least there has grown up in response to his needs, a
distinct and relatively independent local community,
with its own economic, social, and social-political
institutions.

It is assumed that the study here made of the
"Hobohemia" of Chicago, as well as the studies that
are being planned for other areas and aspects of

viii

EDITOR'S PREFACE

the city and its life, will at least be comparable with
the natural areas and the problematic aspects of
other American cities. It is, in fact, the purpose of
these studies to emphasize not so much the partic-
ular and local as the generic and universal aspects
of the city and its life, and so make these studies not
merely a contribution to our information but to our
permanent scientific knowledge of the city as a
communal type.

Robert E. Park

COMMITTEFS PREFACE

THE Committee on Homeless Men was organized
by the Executive Committee of the Chicago
Council of Social Agencies on June i6, 1922, to study
the problem of the migratory casual worker. Its
members included men and women in contact with
the problem of homeless men from different points of
view.

Mr. Nels Anderson, a graduate student in soci-
ology in the University of Chicago, was selected
to make the study. Mr. Anderson was already
thoroughly familiar with the life of the migratory
casual worker. He had shared their experiences
"on the road" and at work, and had visited the
Hobohemian areas of many of the large western
cities. In the summer of 1921, he made a study of
400 migrants. Early in 1922, through the generous
assistance and encouragement of Dr. William A.
Evans, Dr. Ben L. Reitman, and Joel D. Hunter, he
began a study of homeless men in Chicago, in connec-
tion with a field-study course at the University of
Chicago.

The assumption of this study by the Chicago
Council of Social Agencies, in co-operation with
the Juvenile Protective Association, enabled an
enlargement of its scope.^

The object of this inquiry, from the standpoint of
the Committee, was to secure those facts which
would enable social agencies to deal intelligently with
the problems created by the continuous ebb and flow,

^ A part of the investigation relating to the effects upon the boy of associa-
tion with tramps, especially made for the Juvenile Protective Association, is not
included in this report, but will appear in an early number of the Journal
of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology .

[ix

COMMITTEFS PREFACE

out of and into Chicago, of tens of thousands of
foot-loose and homeless men. Only through an
understanding both of the human nature of the
migratory casual worker, and of the economic and
social forces which have shaped his personality, could
there be devised any fundamental program for social
agencies interested in his welfare.

Earlier studies of the migratory casual workers in
the United States have been limited almost entirely
to statistical investigation. In the present inquiry
a more intensive study of cases was decided upon in
preference to an extensive statistical survey. For
the past twelve months Mr. Anderson lived in Hobo-
hemia, and in a natural and informal way secured
upward of sixty life-histories, and collected, in addi-
, tion, a mass of documents and other materials which
are listed in Appendix B. Mr. Anderson has had,
in certain parts of the field work, the assistance of
C. W. Allen, L. G. Brown, G. F. Davis, B. W. Bridg-
man, F. C. Frey, E. H. Koster, G. S. Sobel, H. D.
Wolf, and R. N. Wood, students in sociology at the
University of Chicago, and has utilized the results
of past studies of this subject by students in the
department.

The Committee on Homeless Men held many
meetings which were devoted to outlining the plan
of investigation, to reports upon the progress of field
work, and to the drafting of the findings and recom-
mendations which appear as Appendix A.

The Committee and the author are indebted to
the social agencies and to the many persons who
co-operated in furnishing data for this investigation.
They desire also to express their appreciation to
Professor Robert E. Park for the inclusion of this

COMMITTEE'S PREFACE

volume as the first of a series of studies on the urban
community of which he is editor, and for his services
in the preparation of the manuscript for pubHcation.

Erxest W. Burgess, Chairman

University of Chicago
Wilfred S. ReyxoldSj Secretary

Director, Chicago Council of Social
Agencies

Brigadier John E. x\tkins
Salvation Army, Workingman's
Palace

Miss Jessie Bixford

Juvenile Protective Association
Mrs. Joseph T. Bowex

Juvenile Protective Association
Frederick S. Deibler

Advisory Board, Illinois Free Em-
ployment Service
T. Arnold Hill

Chicago Urban League
Joel D. Hunter

United Charities of Chicago

M. J. Karpf

Jewish Social Service Bureau
George B. Kilbey

Chicago Christian Industrial League
Rev. Moses E. Kiley

Central Charity Bureau

Brigadier David Miller

Salvation Army

Dr. Ben L. Reitman

Chicago Department of Health
WiLLOUGHBY G. WaLLING

President, Chicago Council of Social
Agencies

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I, HOBOHEMIA, THE HOME OF
THE HOMELESS MAN

PAGE

List of Illustrations xv

CHAPTER

L HoBOHEMiA Defined 3

IL The Jungles: The Homeless Man Abroad . 16
IIL The Lodging-House: The Homeless Man at

Home 27

IV. "Getting By" in Hobohemia 40

PART IL TYPES OF HOBOS

CHAPTER

- V. Why Do Men Leave Home ? 61

VI. The Hobo and the Tramp 87

VIL The Home Guard and the Bum 96

- VIIL Work 107

PART IIL THE HOBO PROBLEM

CHAPTER

IX. Health . 125

X. Sex Life of the Homeless Man 137

XL The Hobo as a Citizen 150

PART IV. HOW THE HOBO MEETS
HIS PROBLEM

CHAPTER

XII. Personalities of Hobohemia 171

XIIL The Intellectual Life of the Hobo . . . 185

XIV. Hobo Songs and Ballads 194

XV. The Soap Box and the Open Forum . . . 215

XVI. Social and Political Hobo Organization . . 230

XVIL Missions and Welfare Organixations . . . 250

APPENDIXES

A. Summary of Findings and Recommendations . . 265

B. Documents and Materials 281

C. Bibliography 291

Index 299

[xiii

LIST OF ILLUSTIL^TIONS

PAGS

A Ju.vc-LZ Ca?.:? lo

SVV.V.Z?. RZSORTI.VG BEHIND FiZLD Mv5ZV3.f. ChICAC-O IC

A DiKiNG-R: :v THE •'Ma::^ Stzm'", ..... 3^

ev.ployv.zsz bvreaus 34

Leaders in the Edvcatio.val Move?.:e>."t 88

A Po.'UlA?. RZ50RT IN- H0Z0HZ?.:iA 88

Dr. Bz.v L. Rzitv^n- . , 1-2

Mz).:3ERS 07 THZ JzEJzr.so.v Park I.vtziligz.vtsia iS6

The Hobo Rzads Progrzssivz Litzr.-^.tvrz .... iS6

The Soa?-Box O.R-^tor — Thz Ec jn-o?.:ic Argv:.cz-vt . 216

A.v Outdoor Mission Mzeting — The Religiovs Plea . 216

J.AJ.f?s Eads Hov.- 236

A Free Lvnch at a Mission 2c?

A Winter's Xight in a Mission 2:S

PART I

HOBOHEMIA, THE HOME OF
THE HOMELESS MAN

CHAPTER I

HOBOHEMIA DEFINED

All that Broadway is to the actors of America, West Madison
is to its habitues — and more. Every institution of the Rialto is
paralleled by one in West Madison. West Madison Street is
the Rialto of the hobo.

The hobos, themselves, do not think of Madison Street as
the Rialto; they call it "The Main Stem," a term borrowed
from tramp jargon, and meaning the main street of the town.
"The Main Stem" is a more fitting term, perhaps, than the
Rialto, but still inadequate. West Madison Street is more than
a mere Rialto, more than the principal hobo thoroughfare of
Chicago. It is the Pennsylvania Avenue, the Wilhelmstrasse
of the anarchy of Hobohemia. — From an unpublished paper on
the hobo, by Harry M. Beardsley, of the Chicago Daily News,
March 20, 191 7.

AstjRVEY of the lodging-house and hotel popula-
tion, supplemented by the census reports of the
areas in which they live, indicates that the number of
homeless men in Chicago ranges from 30,000 in good
times to 75,000 in hard times.

We may say that approximately one-third of
these are permanent residents of the city. The other
two-thirds are here today and gone tomorrow. When
work is plentiful they seldom linger in the city more
than a week at a time. In winter when jobs are
scarce, and it takes courage to face the inclement
weather, the visits to town lengthen to three weeks
and a month. From 300,000 to 500,000 of these
migratory men pass through the city during the
course of a normal year.

A still larger number are wanderers who have
spent their days and their strength on the "long,
gray road" and have fled to this haven for succor.
They are Chicago's portion of the down-and-outs.

THE HOBO

An investigation of i,ooo dependent, homeless men made in
Chicago in 191 1 indicated that 254, or more than one-fourth of
the 1,000 examined, were either temporarily crippled or maimed.
Some 89 of this 1,000, or 9 per cent, were manifestly either insane,
feeble-minded, or epileptic. This did not include those large
numbers of border-line cases in which vice or an overwhelming
desire to wander had assumed the character of a mania.

Homeless men are largely single men. Something like
75 per cent of the cases examined were single, while only 9 per
cent admitted they were married.

"main stems"

Every large city has its district into which these
i/ homeless types gravitate. In the parlance of the
"road'' such a section is known as the "stem" or
the "main drag." To the homeless man it is home,
for there, no matter how sorry his lot, he can find
those who will understand. The veteran of the
road finds other veterans; the old man finds the
aged; the chronic grouch finds fellowship; the
radical, the optimist, the crook, the inebriate, all
find others here to tune in with them. The wanderer
finds friends here or enemies, but, and that is at
once a characteristic and pathetic feature of Hobo-
hemia, they are friends or enemies only for the day.
They meet and pass on.

Hobohemia is divided into four parts — west,
south, north, and east — and no part is more than
five minutes from the heart of the Loop. They are
all the "stem" as they are also Hobohemia. This
four-part concept, Hobohemia, is Chicago to the
down-and-out.

THE "slave market"

To the men of the road. West Madison Street is
the "slave market." It is the slave market because

HOBOHEMIA

here most of the employment agencies are located.
Here men in search of work bargain for jobs in
distant places with the "man catchers" from the
agencies. Most of the men on West Madison Street
are looking for work. If they are not seeking work
they want jobs, at least; jobs that have long rides
thrown in. Most of the men seen here are young,
at any rate they are men under middle age; restless,
seeking, they parade the streets and scan the signs
chalked on the windows or smeared over colored
posters. Eager to "ship" somewhere, they are
generally interested in a job as a means to reach a
destination. The result is that distant jobs are in
demand while good, paying, local jobs usually go
begging.

West Madison, being a port of homeless men,
has its own characteristic institutions and pro-,
fessions. The bootlegger is at home here; the dope
peddler hunts and finds here his victims; here thej
professional gambler plies his trade and the "jack
roller," as he is commonly called, the man who rob^
his fellows, while they are drunk or asleep; these and
others of their kind find in the anonymity of this
changing population the freedom and security that
only the crowded city offers.

The street has its share also of peddlers, beggars,
cripples, and old, broken men; men worn out with
the adventure and vicissitudes of life on the road.
One of its most striking characteristics is the almost
complete absence of women and children; it is the
most completely womanless and childless of all the
city areas. It is quite definitely a man's street.

West Madison Street, near the river, has always
been a stronghold of the casual laborer. At one

THE HOBO

time it was a rendezvous for the seamen, but of late
these have made South Chicago their haven. Even
before the coming of the factories, before family life
had wholly departed, this was an area of the home-
less man. It will continue to be so, no doubt, until
big businesses or a new union depot crowds the hobo
out. Then he will move farther out into that area
of deteriorated property that inevitably grows up
just outside the business center of the city, where
property, which has been abandoned for residences,
has not yet been taken over by businesses, and where
land values are high but rents are low.

Jefferson Park, between Adams and Monroe and
west of Throop Street, is an appanage of the "slave
market." It is the favorite place for the "bos" to
sleep in summer or to enjoy their leisure, relating
their adventures and reading the papers. On the
"stem" it is known as "Bum Park," and men who
visit it daily know no other name for it. A certain
high spot of ground in the park is generally designated
as "Crumb Hill." It is especially dedicated to
"drunks." At any rate, the drunk and the drowsy
seem inevitably to drift to this rise of ground. In
fact, so many men visit the place that the grass
under the trees seems to be having a fierce struggle
to hold its own. It must be said, however, that the
men who go to "Bum Park" are for the most part
sober and well behaved. It is too far out for the
more confirmed Madison Street bums to walk. The
town folks of the neighborhood use the park, to a
certain extent, but the women and children of the
neighborhood are usually outnumbered by the men
of the road, who monopolize the benches and crowd
the shady places.

HOBOHEMIA

hobohemia's playground

The thing that characterizes State Street south
of the Loop is the burlesque show. It is here that
the hobo, seeking entertainment, is cheered and
gladdened by the "bathing beauties" and the ori-
ental dancers. Here, also, he finds improvement at
the hands of the lady barbers, who, it is reported,
are using these men as a wedge to make their way
into a profitable profession that up to the present
time has belonged almost wholly to men.

South State Street differs from West Madison in
many particulars. For one thing there are more
women here, and there is nothing like so complete^
an absence of family life. The male population, like-
wise, is of a totally different complexion. The
prevailing color is an urban pink, rather than the
rural grime and bronze of the man on the road.
There are not so many restless, seeking youngsters.

Men do not parade the streets in groups of threes
and fours with their coats or bundles under their
arms. There are no employment offices on this
street. They are not needed. Nobody wants to go
anywhere. When these men work they are content
to take some short job in the city. Short local jobs
are at a premium. Many of these men have petty
jobs about the city where they work a few hours a
day and are able to earn enough to live. In winter
many men will be found in the cheap hotels on
South State, Van Buren, or South Clark streets who
have been able to save enough money during the
summer to house themselves during the cold weather.
State Street is the rendezvous of the vagabond who
has settled and retired, the "home guard" as they
are rather contemptuously referred to by the tribe

THE HOBO

of younger and more adventurous men who still
choose to take the road.

The white man's end of the south section of
Hobohemia does not extend south of Twelfth Street.
From that point on to about Thirtieth Street there
is an area that has been taken over by the colored
population. Colored people go much farther south,
but if there are any homeless men in the "Black
Belt/' they are likely to be found along State Street,
between Twenty-second and Thirtieth. The Douglas
Hotel, in this region, is a colored man's lodging-house.

To the south and southwest are the railroad
yards. In summer homeless men find these yards
a convenient place to pass the night. For those
who wish to leave the city, they are the more acces-
sible than the yards on the north and west. The
railroad yard is, in most places, one of the hobo's
favorite holdouts. It is a good place to loaf. There
are coal and wood and often vacant spaces where he
can build fires and cook food or keep warm. This
is not so easily done in Chicago where the tramp's
most deadly enemy, the railroad police, are numerous
and in closer co-operation with the civil authorities
than in most cities. In spite of this, hobos hang
about the yards.

" BUGHOUS E SQUARE "

On the north side of the river, Clark Street below
Chicago Avenue is the "stem." Here a class of
transients have drifted together, forming a group
unlike any in either of the other areas of Hobohemia.
/This is the region of the hobo intellectuals. This
area may be described as the rendezvous of the
thinker, the dreamer, and the chronic agitator.

HOBOHEMIA

Many of its denizens are "home guards." Few-
transients ever turn up here; they do not have time.
They alone come here who have time to think,
patience to hsten, or courage to talk. Washington
Square is the center of the northern area. To the
"bos'' it is " Bughouse Square." Many people do not
know any other name for it. This area is as near
to the so-called Latin Quarter as the hobo dare come.
"Bughouse Square" is, in fact, quite as much the
stronghold of the more or less vagabond poets,
artists, writers, revolutionists, of various types as of
the go-abouts. Among themselves this region is
known as the "village."

Bohemia and Hobohemia meet at "Bughouse
Square." On Sundays and holidays, any evening,
in fact, when the weather permits, it will be teeming
with life. At such times all the benches will be
occupied. On the grass in the shade of the trees
men sit about in little groups of a dozen or less.
The park, except a little corner to the southeast
where the women come to read, or knit, or gossip,
while the children play, is completely in possession
of men. A polyglot population swarms here.
Tramps, and hobos — yes, but they are only scat-
teringly represented. Pale-faced denizens of the
Russian tearooms, philosophers and enthusiasts
from the "Blue Fish," brush shoulders with kindred
types from the "Dill Pickle," the "Green Mask,"
the "Gray Cottage." Free-lance propagandists who
belong to no group and claim no following, non-
conformists, dreamers, fakers, beggars, bootleggers,
dope fiends — they are all here.

Around the edges of the Square the curbstone
orators gather their audiences. Religion, politics,

THE HOBO

science, the economic struggle, these are the princi-
pal themes of discussion in this outdoor forum.
Often there are three or four audiences gathered at
the same time in different parts of the park, each
carrying on a different discussion. One may be
calling miserable sinners to repent, and the other
denouncing all religion as superstition. Opposing
speakers frequently follow each other, talking^to the
same audience. In this aggregation of minds the
most striking thing is the variety and violence of
the antipathies. There is, notwithstanding, a gen-
erous tolerance. It is probably a tolerance growing
out of the fact, that, although everyone talks and
argues, no one takes the other seriously. It helps
to pass the time and that is why folks come to
"Bughouse Square."

To the hobo who thinks, even though he does not
think well, the lower North Side is a great source of
comfort. On the North Side he finds people to
whom he can talk and to whom he is willing to
listen. Hobos do not generally go there to listen,
however, but burning with a message of which they
are bound to unburden themselves. They go to
speak, perhaps to write. Many of them are there
to get away from the sordidness of life in other
areas of Hobohemia.

A "jungle" on the lake front

Grant Park, east of Michigan Avenue, is a loafing
place for hobos with time on their hands. They
gather here from all parts of Hobohemia to read the
papers, to talk, and to kill time. For men who have
not had a bed it is a good place to sleep when the
sun is kind and the grass is warm. In the long

SUMMKR RESORTING BKHIND FIELD MUSEUM, CHICAGO

HOBOHEMIA

summer evenings Grant Park is a favorite gathering
place for men who Hke to get together to tell yarns
and to frolic. It is a favorite rendezvous for the
boy tramps.

The section of Grant Park facing the lake shore
is no less popular. Along the shore from the Field
Museum northward to Randolph Street the home-
less men have access to the lake. They take advan-
tage of the unimproved condition of the park and
make of the place, between the railroad tracks and
the lake, a retreat, a resort, a social center. Here
they wash their clothes, bathe, sew, mend shoes.

Behind the Field Museum, on the section of the
park that is still being used as a dump for rubbish,
the hobos have established a series of camps or
"jungles." Here, not more than five minutes from
the Loop, are numerous improvised shacks in which
men live. Many men visit these sections only for
the day. To them it is a good place to come to
fish and they spend hours gazing at the water and
trying to keep the little fish from biting.

WHY MEN COME TO CHICAGO

The hobo has no social centers other than the
"stem," and the "jungle." He either spends his
leisure in the "jungles" or in town. The "jungle"
ordinarily is a station on his way to town. Life
revolves for him around his contacts on the "stem," i
and it is to town he hies himself whenever free to \
do so.

Few casuals can give any reason for the attrac-
tion that the city has for them. Few have ever
considered it. The explanations they give, when
pressed for reasons, are more or less matter of fact

THE HOBO

and center in their material interests. Other mo-
tives, motives of which they are only half conscious,
undoubtedly influence them.

^ The city is the labor exchange for the migratory
worker and even for the migratory non-worker who
is often just as ambitious to travel. When he is
tired of a job, or when the old job is finished, he
goes to town to get another in some other part of
the country. The labor exchanges facilitate this
turnover of seasonal labor. They enable a man to
leave the city "on the cushins." This is the lure
that draws him to the city. Hobohemia brings the
job-seeking man and the man-seeking job together.
Migrants have always known that a larger variety of
jobs and a better assortment of good "shipments"
were to be had in Chicago than elsewhere.

Chicago is the greatest railway center in the United States.
No one knows these facts better than the hobo. It is a fact that
trains from all points of the compass are constantly entering
and leaving the city over its 39 different railways. According
to the Chicago City Manual^ there are 2,840 miles of steam
railways within the city hmits. The mileage of steam railroad
track in Chicago is equal to the entire railroad mileage in Switzer-
land and Belgium, and is greater than the steam railroad mileage
found in each of the kingdoms of Denmark, Holland, Norway,
and Portugal. Twenty-five through package cars leave Chicago
every day for 18,000 shipping points in 44 states.

The termination of the seasonal occupations
brings men cityward. They come here for shelter
during the winter, and not only for shelter but for
inside winter work. This is the hobo's only alterna-
tive, provided he cannot go to California or to one
of the southern states. The dull routine of the in-
side job, which seemed so unattractive in the spring-
time, looks better with the falling of the temperature.

HOBOHEMIA

We may add, also, that many of the men who are
attracted to the city in winter are not particularly
interested in work. There are, however, among the
improvident tramp class, "wise virgins" who save
in the summer in order to enjoy the life of a board-
ing-house during the winter.

The hobo often goes to town for medical attention.
For the sick and injured of the floating fraternity
Chicago is a haven of refuge because of the large i
number of opportunities found here for free treat- I
ment. The county hospital, the dispensaries, and
the medical colleges are well known to these men.
Many get well and go their way, others get no
farther than the hospital — and then the morgue.

A man whose income is limited to a few hundred
dollars a year can do more with it in the large city
than in a small town. In no other American city
will a dollar go farther than in Chicago. It is not
uncommon to find men living in Hobohemia on less
than a dollar a day. Large numbers make possible
cheap service, and cheap service brings the men.

THE PROBLEM DEFINED IN TERMS OF NUMBERS

Not only the extent, but the nature of the
problem of the homeless man is revealed by a study
of his numbers. In Chicago all estimates are in
substantial agreement that the population of Hobo-
hemia never falls below 30,000 in summer, doubles
this figure in winter, and has reached 75,000 and
over in periods of unemployment.""

^ Mrs. Solenberger's figures of more than a decade ago put the number of
the various types of homeless men in this city at 40,000-60,000:

"No exact census of the total number of homeless men of various types in
the lodging-house districts of Chicago has been taken, but 40,000 is considered
a conservative estimate by several careful students of the question who are

THE HOBO

These numbers, while large, are only between i
and 2^ per cent of Chicago's population of nearly
3,000,000. Homeless men, however, are not dis-
tributed evenly throughout the city; they are con-
centrated, segregated, as we have seen, in three
contiguous narrow areas close to the center of
transportation and trade.

This segregation of tens of thousands of foot-
loose, homeless, and not to say hopeless men is the
fact fundamental to an understanding of the prob-
lem. Their concentration has created an isolated
cultural area — Hobohemia. Here characteristic
institutions have arisen — cheap hotels, lodging-
houses, flops, eating joints, outfitting shops, employ-

closely in touch with local conditions. This number is somewhat increased at
election times and very greatly increased when word goes out, as it did during
the winter of 1907-8, that relief funds were being collected and free lodgings
and food would be furnished to the unemployed. In December, January,
February, and March of that winter all private lodging-houses were filled to
overflowing, and the Municipal Lodging House, its annex, and two other houses
which it operated gave a total of 79,41 1 lodgings to homeless men as compared
with 6,930 for the same months of the winter before, an increase of 72,481.
The Health Department, which took charge of the municipal lodging-houses
and made a careful study of local conditions during the winter of 1907-8, esti-
mated the number of homeless men then in Chicago to be probably not less
than 60,000." — One Thousand Homeless Men, p. 9, n.

Nearly if not quite one-fifth of the 700 hotels in Chicago cater to the
migratory and casual worker. The 63 hotels visited by investigators in this
study had a total capacity for the accommodation of 1 5,000 men. On the basis
of these figures, it seems safe to put the total capacity of the hotels in Hobohemian
areas at 25,000-30,000. A like number of men are probably provided for in
nearby boarding- and lodging-houses. Thousands of other men sleep at the
docks, in engine rooms, in vacant houses, in flophouses, or in summer in the
parks.

The returns of the 1920 United States census show that in the three wards
of the city in which Hobohemian areas are located there are 28,105 more male
than female residents. This figure indicates that the so-called "home guard"
numbers about 30,000, the summer population of Hobohemia.

The Jewish Bureau of Social Service estimates that the number of home-
less men in Chicago at any one time in the winter of 1921-22 was 120,000.
This figure, which seems high when compared with estimates arrived at by other
methods of calculation, assumes that the proportion of homeless men for the
city is the same as that for the Jewish community.

HOBOHEMIA

ment agencies, missions, radical bookstores, welfare
agencies, economic and political institutions — to
minister to the needs, physical and spiritual, of the
homeless man. This massing of detached and
migratory men upon a small area has created an
environment in which gamblers, dope venders, boot-
leggers, and pickpockets can live and thrive.

The mobility of the migratory worker com-
plicates the problem of the missions, police, and
welfare agencies. The mission measures its success
not only in numbers of converts but in the numbers
of men fed and lodged. The police department,
on the contrary, alarmed by the influx of hobos and
tramps in response to free meals and free flops, has
adopted a policy of severity and repression for the
protection of the community. Welfare agencies,
opposing alike the demoralizing results of indis-
criminate feeding and lodging, and the negative
policy of the police, favor a program of organized
effort based upon an investigation of the needs of
each individual case.

CHAPTER II

THE JUNGLES: THE HOMELESS MAN ABROAD

IN THE city, under ordinary circumstances, the
homeless man gathers with his kind. Even so
he is very much alone and his contacts with his
fellows are relatively formal and distant.

City life is interesting but full of danger. Even
in a world where the conditions of life are so elemen-
tary, prudence dictates a certain amount of reserve
and hence formality and convention in the relations of
men. The flophouse and the cheap hotel compel
promiscuity, but do not encourage intimacy or neigh-
borliness. On the outskirts of cities, however, the
homeless men have established social centers that
they call "jungles," places where the hobos congre-
gate to pass their leisure time outside the urban
centers. The jungle is to the tramp what the camp
ground is to the vagabond who travels by auto. It
has for the hobo, perhaps, greater significance, since
it becomes a necessary part of his daily life. The
evening camp fire for the tourist, on the contrary, is a
novelty merely, an experience but not a necessity.

LOCATION AND TYPES OF JUNGLES

Jungles are usually located in close proximity to a
railroad division point, where the trains are made up
or where trains stop to change crews and engines.
Sometimes they are located near a "tank town,"
where occasional stops are made for water or fuel.
Not infrequently they are near the intersection of
railroad lines. In the South, and on the West Coast,
jungles are often located along the highways. This
is due to the fact that many men go South in winter

i6]

HOBOHEMIA

not to work but to escape the rigors of the northern
climate. The railroad for the time being has no
attraction for them and they are content to stroll
abroad, seeing the country. In the West, where
men frequently carry bedding and cooking equip-
ment, they can camp anywhere. It is easier for
them, therefore, to leave the railroad and venture
along the highways.

Accessibility to a railroad is only one of the|,
requirements of a good jungle. It should be located
in a dry and shady place that permits sleeping on the
ground. There should be plenty of water for cooking
and bathing and wood enough to keep the pot boil-
ing. If there is a general store near by where bread,
meat, and vegetables may be had, so much the better.
For those who have no money, but enough courage to
**bum lumps," it is well that the jungles be not too far
from a town, though far enough to escape the atten-
tion of the natives and officials, the town clowns."

Jungle camps may be divided into two classes —
the temporary and the permanent, or continuous. —
Temporary jungles are merely stop-over or relay sta-
tions inhabited intermittently by the men of the road.
Men temporarily stranded in a town usually seek a
secluded spot at the edge of a village, not too far
from the railroad, where they may while away the
time without being molested. Men on the road look
for places where other men preceding them have
camped. There they are likely to find pots and
kettles in which to cook food or wash clothes. At
points where trains stop frequently, making it pos-
sible for men to get away at any time, the population
of a temporary jungle is likely to be larger and more
permanent.

THE HOBO

The continuous or permanent jungles are seldom
deserted, at least in summer. There is usually some-
one there to keep the fire burning and usually there
are men or boys occupied at various tasks — cooking,
washing or boiling clothes, shaving, sewing, bathing,
and reading.

Women are often found in the areas of the cities
where the homeless men congregate but not in the
I jungles. Here is an institution where the hobo is
his own housewife. He not only cooks his own
food, but has even invented dishes that are peculiar
to jungle life. Chief among these is "mulligan"
stew. "Mulligan," or "combination," is a "throw
together" of vegetables and meat. There are certain
ideal mixtures of vegetables and meat, but the tramp
makes "mulligan" from anything that is at hand.
Onions, potatoes, and beef are the prime essentials.
Some men become adept at frying and roasting over
camp fires.

The hobo who lives in the jungles has proved that
he can become domesticated without the aid of
women. He has established the habit of keeping his
clothes and person clean. It is not difficult to select
from a group of transients the men who have just
come from the jungles. Their clothes will be clean
and even bear evidence of jungle sewing. Overalls
that have seen service will be bleached almost white
from numerous washings. The hobo learns here the
housewife's art of keeping pots clean and the camp
in order. The man who cannot, or will not, learn
these few elementary principles of housekeeping is
likely to fare ill in the jungle.

If it is a warm day some men will be sleeping.
They may have been riding trains all night or have

HOBOHEMIA

found the night too cold for sleep. A daily paper
from an adjoining town may be going the rounds.
There may be newspapers from different cities
brought in by men traveling different directions.
Travelers meeting this way have much of common
interest to talk about and conversation is enlivened
with discussions of questions of concern to '*bos."
The jungle is always astir with life and movement,
and the hobo enters into this life as he does no other.
Here he turns his back on the world and faces his
fellows, and is at ease.

Absolute democracy reigns in the jungle. The
color line has been drawn in some camps, but it is the
general custom, and especially in the North, for
Negroes, Mexicans, and whites to share the same
jungle. The jungle is the melting pot of trampdom.

The average man of the road has had a variety of
experience and not a little adventure. In the jungles
there is always an audience for anyone who wants to
talk, whether of his thoughts, his experiences, or his
observations. There is plenty of opportunity to tell
stories. The art of telling a story is diligently culti-
vated by the "bos" in the assemblies about the fire.
This vagabond existence tends to enrich the person-
ality and long practice has developed in some of these
men an art of personal narrative that has greatly
declined elsewhere. Many of them develop into
fascinating raconteurs in the literal as well as the
literary sense of the term. Talk in the jungle is of
the open road and the day to come, and in that there
is sufficient matter to occupy them.

Jungle populations are ever changing. Every
hour new faces appear to take the place of those that
have passed on. They come and go without cere-

THE HOBO

mony, with scarcely a greeting or fare-you-well."
Every new member is of interest for the news he
brings or the rumors that he spreads. Each is
interested in the other so far as he has something to
tell about the road over which he has come, the work
conditions, the behavior of the police, or other sig-
nificant details. But with all the discussion there is
, seldom any effort to discuss personal relations and
connections. Here is one place where every man's
past is his own secret.

Only in the case of very young boys or sick men
and sometimes old men is there any effort to learn
something of the individual's past. Men will brush
elbows in the jungles for days and even weeks with-
out ever learning one another's names. They live
closed lives and grant others the same privilege.

THE LAWS OF THE JUNGLE

In every permanent camp there is likely to be a
permanent group that makes the camp its head-
quarters. Sometimes these groups are able to take
possession and exploit the transient guests. The
I.W.W. has at times been able to exclude everyone
who did not carry the red card of that organization.
As a rule, however, the jungle is extremely hospitable
and democratic.

The freedom of the jungles is, however, limited by
a code of etiquette. Jungle laws are unwritten, but
strictly adhered to. The breaking of these rules, if
intentional, leads to expulsion, forced labor, or phys-
ical punishment.

Jungle crimes include (i) making fire by night in jungles
subject to raids; (2) **hi-jacking/' or robbing men at night
when sleeping in the jungles; "buzzing," or making the jungle

HOBOHEMIA

a permanent hangout for jungle "buzzards'* who subsist on
the leavings of meals; (4) wasting food or destroying it after
eating is a serious crime; (5) leaving pots and other utensils
dirty after using; (6) cooking without first hustling fuel; (7)
destroying jungle equipment. In addition to these fixed offenses
are other crimes which are dealt with as they arise. Men are
supposed to use cooking cans for cooking only, "boiling up"
cans for washing clothing, coffee cans to cook coffee, etc. After
using, guests are expected to clean utensils, dry them, and
leave them turned bottom side up so that they will not fill with
rainwater and rust. They are expected to keep the camp clean.
To enforce such common-sense rules, self-appointed committees
come into existence.^

Exclusive camps are usually the result of the
efforts of the older residents to enforce discipline.
Most ^'jungle buzzards," men who linger in the
jungles from season to season, take an interest in
the running of things. For the most part they are
parasitic, begging food from others, but they are
generally on the alert to keep the place clean and
orderly.

The following description of a day in the jungles
was written by a migratory worker, a man who knows
the life from years of experience. His narrative pre-
sents a faithful picture of an average day in an
average jungle.

A Day in the Jungles

i.^ This jungle is on the edge of a strip of timber. A stream
fed from a spring runs into the lake near by. The empty box

^ It is interesting here to note that there is a striking parallel between the
rules of the jungles and the rules of cow camps and other camps of the hills. It
is the custom of the cow men of the west to maintain camps in the hills which
are stocked with provisions and equipped with utensils and furnishings. These
camps are usually left open and anyone who passes is welcome to spend the
night, provided he puts the place in order when he leaves.

2 The documents from which extracts have been taken are numbered
consecutively in the text. For complete list of documents used in each chapter
see pp. 281-88.

THE HOBO

cars on the railroad siding close by offer protection against rain
and a place to sleep. Half a mile away is the junction of two
railroads where all trains stop, and a mile and a half further on
is a small town.

At one o'clock in the morning a few men step off a freight
train. One speaks up: "Does anyone know if there is a jungle
in this place ?" "Yes," someone answers, "The jungle is up
in that direction," pointing towards a woods, "but what's the
use in going over there now ? You can't build a fire at this time
of night. I am going to hunt up a box car for a flop."

After a moment of silence someone else asks, "Any town
close by ?" "Yes, there it is," replies another, pointing to
some lights showing in the distance. The men form groups
according to acquaintance and talk in a low tone. "Come on,
let us hunt up a place to flop till daylight." The different
groups start off. One starts out for the town, one goes towards
the box cars, and one makes for the jungles. I was with the
group bound for the jungles.

A hundred feet from the railroad right-of-way under the
darkness of big trees we see three or four dying camp fires.
Around one fire we can see the shadows of men. Some are
sitting on the butts of logs, smoking or dozing; others are
stretched out on the ground sound asleep.

The new arrivals walk up to the fire, look over the bunch to
find, perhaps, some old acquaintances. Then some of us find
seats or lie down; others, with as little noise as possible, hunt
up cans which they fill with water and place over the glowing
coals. The men take ground coffee from packages in their
pockets and pour it into boiling water. The feed is open to
everybody. Bread and sausage are brought out; even sugar
is passed around as long as it lasts. The men eat in silence.
Each one takes the utensils he used and walks to the creek to
wash them. Nearly all of the men then lie down, but some
leave. Nobody asks anyone about himself and nobody says
"hello" or "goodbye."

Daylight comes. The breaking of sticks for firewood is
heard. Fires are started, cooking utensils are chosen. The law
of the jungle is that no one can call a vessel his except at the
time he uses it. Packages and receptacles are opened revealing
food of all kinds. Eating commences. If any man with more
than enough for himself sees someone else not eating, it is

HOBOHEMIA

etiquette to offer to share with his neighbor. If the other man
accepts the offer, he thereby takes upon himself the responsibiHty
of cleaning the dishes.

At any time men will be seen leaving the jungles to hustle
food, or to get wood, or to catch trains. Anytime is eating time
in the jungles and someone is always bringing in "chuck" that
he has bought or "bummed." Talking goes on as long as the
daylight lasts. Heated arguments often develop. Papers and
pamphlets are distributed, union cards are taken out; business
meetings are held to decide policies and actions, how to get the
next meal or how to win the battle between labor and capital.

About ten o'clock in the morning two townsmen displaying
stars come into the jungle. One of them tells the men that they
will have to clean out because people are kicking. A holdup
has been committed in town the night before and they intend
to prevent any more from being committed, "So you fellers
have to leave."

One man in the jungles speaks up and tells the officers that
we are not holdup men, that we are getting ourselves something
to eat, and that we have got to have some place to do that.
"We have paid for everything. What would you do if you was
in our place; go into town and get pulled and let the town
feed us ?"

The officer looks nonplussed, but curtly replies, "Well, I
am going by orders." After that he walks away. The timid
men leave the jungle. The others reply by roundly cursing
indiscriminately all their enemies. They are town clowns,
sky pilots, Bible ranters, bulls, politicians, home guards, hicks,
stool pigeons, systems, scissor bills, and capitalists. Incidentally
they advocate strikes, rebellion, mass action, complete revolu-
tion of the pohtical system, abolishment of the wage system.

It is close to twelve o'clock. Fires are replenished, cans,
pots and pans are put into service. Plans are being made in
anticipation of a coming raid by the police. At two o'clock,
someone suggests a song. After a fiery song of the class struggle,
a speech follows advising the men to organize.

By three o'clock only about fifteen or twenty are left in the
jungle. The officer followed by townsmen armed with guns
return. Some of the hobos retreat into the woods. Those
remaining are ordered to hold up their hands with "You damn
bums" added to the command. Some comply, others refuse.

THE HOBO

One even has the courage to shout, "Go ahead and shoot, you
damn cowards." This starts a general shooting into every pot,
pan and can in sight. The men scatter.

After the invaders leave, an inventory is immediately made
to assess the damage. Since the utensils in best condition had
been hidden in the brush, no serious loss to the jungle has
resulted.

By four o'clock the story of the raid has traveled and men
come in from all directions. The decision of the majority is to
remain in the jungle over night. Food is brought in and prepara-
tions for supper begin. The men are doubling up to cook
together. Those belonging to certain unions have as many as
eight or ten in a bunch. There are from thirty to forty angry
men in camp by now and more are coming in. There is some
talk of revenge.

By six o'clock supper is well under way. Several fires are
burning. Containers of every description are used to cook in;
broken shovels and tie plates are used to fry on, empty tobacco
tins are used as cups, and tomato cans serve as fry pans, soup
kettles and soap dishes. Potatoes are roasted on the coals,
wires are bent upon which to broil meat. All are still talking
excitedly of the clash with the poHce.

While some of the men are busily engaged in cooking, others
are sewing and mending their clothes or shoes, and still others are
shaving. Now and then as at breakfast someone will shout,
asking if anybody wants some spuds or a piece of punk or a
piece of "gut" (sausage); and usually there is an affirmative
answer. After supper, pans and cans are cleaned out, the paper
is read and passes the rounds. Already it is growing dark, and
the hunt begins for dry sleeping places.

Suddenly a commotion is started; a man is roughly rushed
into the open. He is a hi-jack caught in the act of robbing a
fellow who was sleeping, a greater crime in the jungle than an

open hold up. Cries of "Burn the " and "Let us hang

him!" are heard from all sides. A council is hurriedly called, a
chairman is selected, motions are made with amendments and
substitutes. After a short discussion a vote is taken to give
him a whipping. The man is tied to a tree facing toward it.
His back is bared, and men are called for to apply punishment.
No one steps forward; everybody declines to apply the strap
or stick.

HOBOHEMIA

Another council is called but before they get started a young
fellow has declared his willingness to fight the hi-jack to a
finish because he knew him and didn't like him anyway. The
proposition is accepted. The hi-jack is more than ten pounds
heavier than the challenger; but whether from fear or not, for
he knows that the challenger has the crowd back of him to a
man, the hi-jack is slow to start. Perhaps he feels that the
crowd will give him a beating whether he wins or not. He soon
loosens up but he does not show the goods. The "bo" is more
than a match for him but the hi-jack does not give up easily.
He displays some courage but the "bo" fights like a madman
and strikes the hi-jack blow after blow. The fight lasts more
than ten minutes before the hi-jack is completely knocked out.

After he gets to his feet he is given a chance to wash his face
and stick paper on the cuts; then he is "frisked," that is, ordered
to donate all but one dollar to the jungle. Then he is sent out
of camp with orders not to show up in any of the diggings along
the line for it would be murder if anyone should spot him.

By eleven o'clock the excitement is over. Different men
announce that they were headed for so and so and that the
freight starts at such a time. To this someone replies that he
is going that way too so they start off together. Others walk
back among the trees to the places where they have prepared
to sleep. Others who have insufficient clothes to stand the
night chill bunch up around the glowing camp fires. Soon
everything is quiet except for an occasional sound out of the
darkness of men mumbling in conversation. Occasionally the
sound of groans and snores or sighs, or curses are heard. These
betray the dreams of men living like hunted animals.

I look at my watch and note that it is near midnight and
that all is over for the night, so I curl up on some papers beside
a bed of coals. ^

THE MELTING POT OF TRAMPDOM

The part played by the jungles as an agency ofJ
discipline for the men of the road cannot be over-]
estimated. Here hobo tradition and law are formu-
lated and transmitted. It is the nursery of tramp

^ Written by A. W. Dragstedt, secretary in 1922 of the "Hobo College" of
Chicago.

THE HOBO

lore. Here the fledgling learns to behave like an
old-timer. In the jungles the slang of the road and
the cant of the tramp class is coined and circulated.
It may originate elsewhere but here it gets recogni-
tion. The stories and songs current among the men
of the road, the sentiments, the attitudes, and the
philosophy of the migratory laborer are all given due
airing. In short, every idea and ideal that finds
lodgment in the tramp's fancy may be expressed here
in the wayside forum where anyone who thinks may
speak, whether he be a jester or a sage.

Suspicion and hostility are the universal attitudes
of the town or small city to the hobo and the tramp.
Accordingly, the so-called "floater" custom of pass-
ing vagrants on to other communities is widespread.^
The net eff'ect of this policy is to intensify the anti-
social attitude of the homeless man and to release
and accentuate criminal tendencies. The small town
is helpless to cope with the situation. As things
are, its action perhaps cannot be different. Agri-
culture, as it becomes organized upon a capitalistic
basis, is increasingly dependent upon seasonal labor,
in harvesting crops for example. The report of the
Commission on Industrial Relations states:

The attempts to regulate movements of migratory workers
by local organizations have, without exception, proved failures.
This must necessarily be true no matter how well planned or
well managed such local organizations may be. The problem
cannot be handled except on a national scale and by methods
and machinery which are proportioned to the enormous size
and complexity of the problem.^

' For a discussion of the practice of "floating" with reference to the treat-
ment of misdemeanants, see Stuart A. Queen, T/ie Passing of the County Jail.

Final Report y p. 158.

CHAPTER III

THE LODGING-HOUSE:

THE HOMELESS MAN AT HOME

HOBOHEMIA is a lodging-house area. The
accommodations it offers the homeless man
range from a bed in a single room for fifty cents to
location on the floor of an empty loft for a dime.
Lodging-house keepers take thin profits but they
serve large numbers. There are usually more men
than there are beds, particularly in winter. An
estimate indicates that all hotels are full from
December to May. During the rest of the year
they are likely to be filled to two-thirds of their
capacity.

Chicago has known three types of cheap hotels:
the so-called "barrel-house," the welfare institution,
and the business enterprise. The first, the barrel-
house, was a rooming-house, saloon, and house
of prostitution, all in one. Men with money usu-
ally spent it in the barrel-houses. There they found
warmth and companionship. They would join the
circle at the bar, buy drinks for the crowd, and
have a good time. Men who were afraid of being
robbed placed their money with the bartender and
charged against it the drinks purchased. As soon
as they were overcome by drink they would be
taken upstairs to bed. The following day the pro-
gram would be repeated. A three- or four-hundred-
dollar stake at this rate usually lasted a week. Not
infrequently the barrel-house added to its other
attractions the opportunity for gambling.

The barrel-house is a thing of the past. Its place
has been taken in part by hotels like the Working-

THE HOBO

men's Palace; the Reliance; the New Century, owned
and operated by the Salvation Army; the Rufus F.
Dawes, owned and maintained by General C. G.
Dawes; the Popular Hotel, owned and maintained
by the Chicago Christian Industrial League. In
places of this sort, charges are small, usually not
enough to cover operating expenses.

The Rufus F. Dawes and the Workingmen's
Palace are both large, fire-proof structures, clean and
modern, constructed originally for other purposes.
Like all paternalistic, quasi-charitable institutions,
however, they are not popular, although the charges
for a room and bed are hardly sufficient to cover the
operating expenses. This is the second type of
lodging-house.

The pioneers in the cheap hotel business in Chi-
cago operated on a commercial basis were Harvey and
McGuire, the founders of the well-known Harvey-
McGuire hotel system. Harvey, an evangelist, in his
work with the "down-and-outs" had learned the
evils of barrel-houses. He went into a partnership
with McGuire, a man acquainted with the rough
side of life. After a number of years the Harvey-
McGuire system went out of existence. McGuire
went into the hotel business for himself and now owns
a number of cheap lodging-houses. Harvey sold his
interests to his nephew and went back to evangelistic
work. The nephew went into partnership with Mr.
Dammarell. There are eight hotels in the present
Harvey-Dammarell system with a combined capacity
for lodging 3,000 men. The Ideal opened in 1884,
probably the oldest men's hotel in the city, originally
known as the Collonade, at 509 West Madison Street,
is an example of the type. The Mohawk, the most

HOBOHEMIA

modern men*s hotel, is also the property of the
Harvey-Dammarell system.

The men who run these hotels do not claim to be
philanthropists. Mr. Harvey has defined the situa-
tion. He says:

We are in the hotel business to make a living. We give the
men the best service they can pay for. We give nothing away
and we ask nothing. Consequently, we do not lay ourselves
open to criticism. We insist on order and sobriety and we usu-
ally get it. We hold that the men have a right to criticize us
and come to us if they are not satisfied with the service we give.
That is business. The man who pays seventy-five cents for a
bed has a right to seventy-five cents' worth of service. If a man
can only pay twenty-five cents for a bed he is entitled to all that
he pays for and is entitled to kick if he doesn't get it.

Different types of hotels attract different types of
men. The better class of workingmen who patronize
the Mohawk, where the prices range from forty to
seventy cents, wear collars and creased trousers.
The hotel provides stationery and desks. Hotels
where the prices range from twenty-five cents to
forty cents are patronized by a shabbier group of
men. Few of them are shaven. Some of them read,
but most of them sit alone with their thoughts. In
some second-class places a man is employed to go the
rounds and arouse the sleepers.

In the twenty-five-cent hotels, the patrons not
only are content to sit unshaven, but they are often
dirty. Many of them have the faces of beaten men;
many of them are cripples and old men. The excep-
tions are the Popular and the Rufus F. Dawes, where
the price is twenty cents or less to be sure, but the
guests are more select. Since these places are
semi-charitable, they can force certain requirements
upon their patrons.

THE HOBO

The term "room" is a misnomer when applied to
a sleeping apartment in a cheap hotel. These rooms
have been aptly termed "cubicles/* and among the
patrons they are known as "cages." A cubicle is
usually from 6 to 8 feet in width and from 8 to 12
feet in length. The thin walls, composed of steel or
matched lumber, are usually about 8 feet in height.
A wire netting over the top admits air and prevents
the guests climbing from one cubicle to another.
The furnishings are simple; sometimes only a bed,
sometimes a bed and a chair, and in more expensive
places a stand. They are not constructed either for
comfort or convenience; lighting and ventilation are
usually bad. But they are all they were intended to
be: places for men to sleep with a limited degree of
privacy.

A canvass of the Hobohemian hotels has been made
with a view to learning the approximate mobility of
the hotel population. Few of these hotels are pre-
pared to make any but general statements, though
some of them have made an effort to get the facts.
The consensus of opinion of hotel clerks is that the
greatest turnover is in the cheapest hotels. Better-
class places like the Acme, the Ironsides, and the
Workingmen's Palace have a large proportion of
permanent guests. The permanent guests, those
who remain two or three months or more, range from
a third to a half of the total number of roomers.
Many of the older hotels have permanent patrons
who are seasonal but regular. Others never leave
the city.

THE "flophouse"

"Flophouses" are nearly all alike. Guests sleep
on the floor or in bare, wooden bunks. The only

HOBOHEMIA

privilege they buy is the privilege to lie down some-
where in a warm room.

2. "Hogan's Flop" is known from coast to coast among
hobos. A tramp who has been in Chicago long enough to learn
of Lynch's place, the Workingmen's Palace, Hinky Dink's, or to
eat doughnuts in missions has heard of Hogan's.

The first "Hogan's Flop" was located on South State Street.
Later it moved to the West Side and for some time was on Merid-
ian Street. Since it left Meridian Street it has been located in
several places. The original Hogan, who was a Spanish-
American War veteran, has passed to his reward. Only his name
remains. Every winter, however, someone starts a "flop" and
it invariably inherits the name and fame of Hogan. Hogan is
now a myth, a sort of eponymous hero. A tramp discussing this
matter said: "Hogan may be dead but the bugs that were in
business with him are still on the job. They follow this joint
wherever it goes. You know when they moved from Meridian
Street it wasn't three days before the bugs got the new address
and followed us."

The following account is adapted from a descrip-
tion of a night spent in "Hogan*s Flop":

3. I spent the evening at the Bible Rescue Mission where
sincere folks were pleading with men of the road to come forward
and make things right with the Master. Two came forward
and it was a time of rejoicing. They prayed and sang and fed
us rolls and coffee, and to those who had no bed for the night they
gave tickets to "Hogan's." They offered me a ticket but I
thanked them and assured them that I still had a little money.

You have to know where "Hogan's" is to find it. In the
spring of 1922, it occupied the second and third floors of a build-
ing at 16 South Desplaines Street. A narrow, shaky stairs, a
squeaky door, a feebly lighted entrance, a night clerk who de-
mands a dime and you are within. You may take your choice of
sleeping on this floor or go on up to the third. There is no differ-
ence in the price. I chose the second floor. It was less crowded.
The fire, from a large heater in the center of the room, was
warmer.

The men around the stove had evidently been exposed to the
elements. One was drying his shoes for it had rained all day.

THE HOBO

Another was drying his shirt. Two were engaged in listless con-
versation. Others were silent. The air was stuffy, the light dim.
I walked around the room looking for a place to lie down. Dozens
of men were sleeping on the floor with their heads to the wall.
Some were lying on paper, others on the bare floor. Some were
partly covered by their overcoats; some had no overcoats. It
is an art to curl up under an overcoat. One man of fifty years
or more had removed his shirt and trousers and was using the
latter for a pillow. He had tied his shoes to his trousers which is
evidence that he knew "flop" house ethics. When men sleep in
box cars they sometimes use their shoes for pillows but this is not
necessary in "Hogan's." A planking around the walls aflFords
a resting place for weary heads.

A number of the faces here I had seen a great many times on
the "stem." Two were old men in their seventies who had been
in the city several years and were mendicants most of the time.
There was a one-legged man whom I had seen chumming with
another one-legged man on the streets. Both peddled lead
pencils and shoestrings. On the only cot on the floor, two young
fellows were lying. They were sleeping with their heads at
opposite ends of the narrow bed and their bodies were entangled
to prevent their falling off".

I found a vacant place on the floor where I could have about
two feet between myself and my nearest neighbor so I spread my
papers and lay down. I had more paper than I needed so I gave
half to another man who was just circling about for a place to go
to bed. I asked the man nearest me if the bugs bothered much.
He answered in the richest of Irish brogues that Hogan's bugs
were sure efficient. Another man chimed in. He said they were
better organized than the German army. How well organized
they were I can't say but I was not long in learning that they
were enterprising.

Two men near me engaged in a discussion about the economic
conference at Genoa. One man had very positive, orderly ideas
of how things should go. The other interrupted occasionally
only to agree. Someone wanted to know why he didn't hire a
hall. Then there was silence, except for snores. I never heard
such a variety of snores but none of them seemed to suggest
peaceful slumbers or pleasant dreaming. Once the snores were
broken into by some man bawHng out, "Hey, you; quit spittin'
over this way; you're gettin' it on my paper." "Well, dammit;

HOBOHEMIA

How much room do you want to take up ?" *His neighbor

retorted, "It's none of your business how much room I take.

You lay ofF'n that spittin', see."

More snores. A man got up, stretched, rubbed his legs, came
to the center of the room to the stove. More snores. Some
men came in, paid their dimes and looked for an opening on the
floor. A man ran to the toilet to vomit. A wag called to him
to "heave it up."

After an hour or so I felt something on my hand. I crushed
it. There were others to be seen on the white papers. I lay
down to try to sleep again. A second attack brought me
suddenly to my feet. I lay down resolved a third time not to be
disturbed. My companions seemed to be suffering more from
the hard floor than anything else; and the floor was hard. I
turned my thoughts to the hardness of the floor at "Hogan's."

How long I dozed I can't say but I awoke marveUng at the
endurance of the man of the road. While I pondered thus a
man jumped to his feet and hastened out. He was cursing the
bugs and saying that he knew an engine room that had this " place
beat all hollow." I felt better. Someone else had weakened
first. I got up and started home. It was two-thirty.

RESTAURANTS AND LUNCHROOMS

Hobohemian restaurants serve meals for a half
or a third of the prices current in the Loop. In some
of these lunchrooms the charges are so low that one
marvels. However, the food is coarse and poor and
the service rough and ready.

The homeless man is as casual in his eating as he
is in his work. He usually gives all the restaurants
a trial. If he has any money when meal time comes
he generally does a little "window shopping." He
meanders up and down the street reading the bills of
fare in the windows. The Hobohemian restaurants
know this and accordingly use window displays to
attract the roaming patron. Food is placed in the
windows, cooking is done within sight of the street,
but the chief means of attraction are the menus

THE HOBO

chalked on the windows. The whole window is
sometimes lettered up with special entrees of the day.
Some of these bills of fare are interesting.

Gus's place on South Halsted Street near the
Academy Theater, July 28, 1922, displayed the
following:

Pig's Snouts and Cab-
bage or Kraut 15c

Corn Beef Hash loc

Hamburger Roast. . . . loc

Liver and Onions 15c

Hungarian Goulash . . . 20c
Pig's Shank and Cab-
bage. 15c

Spare Ribs and Cabbage 20c

Pig's Feet and Potato

Salad 15c

Beef Stew and Kraut . . 15c
Sausage and Mashed

Potatoes 15c

Roast Beef 20c

Roast Pork 25c

T-Bone Steak 30c

The same day the James Restaurant on Madison
Street near Desplaines advertised the following under
the caption, "A Full Meal for Ten Cents

Veal Loaf loc

Sardines and Potato

Salad IOC

Hamburger and One

Egg IOC

Baked Beans loc

Liver and Onions loc

Corn Beef Plain loc

Macaroni Italian loc

Three Eggs any Style 15c

Kidney Stew loc

Sausage and Mashed

Potatoes IOC

Brown Hash and One

Egg IOC

Liver and Brown

Gravy loc

Salt Pork Plain loc

Salmon and Potato

Salad IOC

Corn Flakes and Milk 5c
Four Eggs any Style. . 20c

One eating-house on West Madison Street is
"The Home Restaurant, Meals Fifteen Cents and
Up." This is a popular appeal. Restaurants fre-
quently advertise "Home Cooking," "Home Made
Bread," "Home Made Coffee," "Doughnuts Like
Mother Used to Make."

EMPLOYMENT BUREAUS OhVKR OPJ'ORTUNnT FOR
TRAVEL

HOBOHEMIA

At meal time, especially at noon, scores of men
flock into these eating-houses. The men, a noisy
and turbulent crowd, call out their orders, which
are shouted by the waiters to the cooks who set out
without ceremony the desired dishes. Four or five
waiters are able to attend to the wants of a hundred
or more men during the course of an hour. The
waiters work like madmen during the rush hours,
speeding in with orders, out with dirty dishes. Dur-
ing the course of this hour a waiter becomes literally
plastered with splashes of coffee, gravy, and soup.
The uncleanliness is revolting and the waiters are
no less shocking than the cooks and dishwashers. In
the kitchens uncleanliness reaches its limit.

But what is the opinion of the patron ? They
know that the hamburger is generally mixed with
bread and potatoes, that the bread is usually stale,
that the milk is frequently sour. There are few who
do not abhor the odors of the cheap restaurant, but
a steady patron reasons thus: "I don't allow myself
to see things, and as long as the eyes don't see the
heart grieves not."

OUTFITTING STORES AND CLOTHING EXCHANGES

The hobo seldom dresses up. If he does it is
evidence that he is making an effort to get out of his
class. When he does buy clothing, either rough
clothing or a good "front," he finds his way to places
where new clothes are on sale at astonishingly low
prices. The seasonal laborer's outfitters handle a
very cheap grade of goods. Much of it is out of
date and either shopworn or soiled. Cheap clothing
stores are not peculiar to Hobohemia, but here they
cater to the wants of the homeless man.

THE HOBO

Clothing exchanges, which is a polite term for
second-hand clothing stores, are numerous in Hobo-
hemia. There are many of them along North Clark
Street and west of Clark on Chicago Avenue. These
establishments make a specialty of buying slightly
worn clothing, sample suits and overcoats from
broken lots, which they sell at remarkably low prices.

Second-hand clothing stores are not entirely
monopolized by the hobo trade, but the veteran
hobo knows of their existence and he knows how to
drive a bargain.

The cobbler who deals in shoes, both second-hand
and new, as a sideline, gets his share of the Hobo-
hemian trade. Coming off the road with a roll, the
hobo is likely to invest in a whole outfit — shoes, suit,
and overcoat — only to sell them again in a few days
when he is broke. The second-hand dealer meets
him both ways, coming and going.

PAWN SHOPS

Pawn shops are not typical of Hobohemia. They
are usually located in that region just outside the
limits of the lodging-houses, a sort of border land
between respectability and the down-and-outs. Not
that the hobo is unwilling, when he is broke, to put
anything valuable he happens to have in "hock,"
but usually he does not happen to have anything
valuable. Still there are men who make a practice
of carrying a watch or a ring upon which, in case of
need, they can raise a few dollars.

Pawn shops are, to a limited extent, clothing
exchanges. They are places where the hobo does
much of his buying and selling of tools, fire arms,
leather goods, jewelry, and like articles of that sort.

HOBOHEMIA

MOVIES AND BURLESQUES

Commercialized entertainment has had difficulty
in getting a foothold in Hobohemia. The movie has
firmly established itself on the border land, where it
may be patronized by both the transient and the
resident population. The movies put the admission
fee at ten cents. As a matter of fact, there is one on
South Halsted Street which charges only a nickel.
The pictures shown in these houses have usually
passed from the first-class theaters through the vari-
ous grades of cheaper houses until finally they arrive
here much out of date, badly scarred, and so
scratched that they irritate the eyes.

Vaudeville and burlesque have become fully
established on the South Side. Certain of these
theaters cater to "men only." Advertisements of
"classy girls," "bathing beauties," or "fancy danc-
ing" have a strange attraction for the homeless and
lonely men.

Many men in the Hobohemian population do not
patronize either the movie or the burlesque. Those
who do are sometimes merely looking for an oppor-
tunity to sit down in quiet for an hour. Some
theaters, in recognition of this fact, extend an invita-
tion to the audience to "Stay as Long as You Like."
This draws a great many men, especially in cold
weather.

BARBER COLLEGES AND BARBERS

Chicago has several barber colleges in close prox-
imity to the "stem." Four of them are located on
West Madison Street and most of them are so
situated that they can attract men who are willing
to submit to the inexperienced efforts of students.

THE HOBO

Students must have practice, and here are men, who
as they themselves say, can stand it.

The cheap rooming-houses do not always offer
facilities for shaving, so they are willing to sacrifice
themselves in the interest of education and art. If
they are fortunate they may be served by a Senior,
but they always are in danger of falling into the hands
of a Freshman. Hair cuts cost ten or fifteen cents.
This is governed by the law of supply and demand.
The colleges must have patrons to keep the students
busy. The lady barber flourishes in Hobohemia.
The hobo, at least, seems to have no prejudice against
a razor being wielded by feminine hands.

BOOKSTORES

Hobohemia has its bookstores where new and
second-hand books are sold. The "Hobo Book-
store," sometimes called the ''Proletariat," located
at 1237 West Madison Street, is the best known.
This place makes a specialty of periodicals of a
radical nature which are extensively read by the
"bos." A large line of books on many subjects are
sold, but they are chiefly the paper-bound volumes
that the transient can afford. The "Radical Book
Shop," located on North Clark Street, is popular
among the intellectuals who pass their time in Bug-
house Square."

SALOONS AND SOFT DRINK STANDS

The saloon still lives in Hobohemia, though with
waning prestige. The five-cent schooner and the
free lunch of pre-war days have passed, but the
saloons are far from being dead. One can still get
a "kick" out of stuff that is sold across the bar, but

HOBOHEMIA

the crowds do not gather as before prohibition.
Formerly, men who got drunk were kept inside, today
they are hustled outside or at least kept out of sight.
As the saloon has lost its prestige, the bootlegger has
gained, and the "drunks" for which he is responsible
parade the streets or litter the alleys.

Fruit and soft drink stands and ice-cream cone
peddlers are in evidence since prohibition. Enthu-
siastic and persistent bootblacks swarm in the streets
and Gypsy fortune-tellers who hail every passer-by
for the privilege of "reading" his mind, and, perhaps,
in order to turn a trick at his expense.

THE HOUSING PROBLEM

Standards of living are low in Hobohemia. Flopsl
are unwholesome and unsanitary. Efforts have been \
made to improve these conditions, but they have not
been wholly successful. The Salvation Army and the
Dawes hotels have improved the lodging-houses. But
the municipal free lodging-house has been opposed by
the police on the ground that it was already too pop-
ular among casual and migratory workers. The same
may be said of any other effort to deal with the
problem from the point of view of philanthropy.

The only other alternative would seem to be to
encourage the migratory workers to organize to help
themselves. This is difficult but not impossible, but
the history of these efforts is another chapter in the
story of Hobohemia.

CHAPTER IV

"GETTING BY*' IN HOBOHEMIA

A MAN who is conservative can live in Hobo-
hemia on a dollar a day. If he is not too
fastidious he can live for sixty cents, including a bed
every night. Sleeping in a ten-cent "flop" and stick-
ing to coffee and rolls, he can get along for fifty
cents. Old men who do not move around much will
live a long time on "coffee-an'," which they can get
at the average restaurant for a nickel. The man
who is reduced to "coffee-anV' however, has touched
bedrock.

An old beggar who lingers about the Olive Branch Mission
on South Desplaines Street claims that if he were guaranteed
forty cents a day he could get on nicely. This would give him
a bed every night and, as he says, a good bed is sometimes better
than a meal.

The daily routine of this old man's life rarely takes him
beyond the limits of a single block. On the south side of Madi-
son Street, between 62 Desplaines Street and the Transedes
Hotel, he is at home. All else is, for him, the open sea. When
he ventures beyond the limits of this area into outlying territory
he plans the trip the day before.

There are perhaps a hundred old men on South State and
West Madison streets whose interests and ambitions have shrunk
to the same unvarying routine and the same narrow limits.^

Every man who enters Hobohemia is struggling to
live above the "coffee-an'" level, and the various
devices that are employed in accomplishing this are
often ingenious. This business of wringing from
chance source enough money each day to supply
one's insistent wants is known on the "stem" as
"getting by." "Getting by" may mean anything
from putting in a few hours a day at the most casual

^ See Document 18.

40]

HOBOHEMIA

labor to picking a pocket or purloining an overcoat.
It includes working at odd jobs, peddling small
articles, street faking, ''putting over" old and new
forms of grafts, "working" the folks at home,
white collar" begging, stealing, and ''jack rolling."

' WORKING AT ODD JOBS

In spite of all that has been said to the contrary,
the hobo is a worker. He is not a steady worker but
he earns most of the money he spends. There are
migratory casual workers, who spend three or four
months each year in a Chicago 4odging-house, who
never look to the public for assistance. They know
how much money they will need to tide them over
the winter, and they have learned to spread it thin
to make it reach. Casual in their work, they are
conservative in their spending.

There are others who are never able to save any-
thing. No matter how much they bring to town
they soon spend it. For these the odd job is the
likeliest means of livelihood. In a city like Chicago
there are almost always opportunities for men who
are content to take small jobs. Every restaurant
must have dishwashers and waiters. Every hotel
needs porters; every saloon or pool hall employs men
to do odd jobs. Petty as these jobs are and little as
they pay, men not only take but seek them. One
man who has been twenty years on West Madison
Street is working as night clerk in a lodging-house;
another does janitor work at nights and loafs day-
time; still another has been for some time a potato
peeler in a Madison Street restaurant.

Men who spurn steady jobs in favor of petty ones
with pay every night sometimes do so because they

THE HOBO

hate to leave the street. Often it is because they are
not properly clad or have no money to pay their way.

PEDDLING A DEVICE FOR "GETTING BY"

In the eyes of the law, peddling in Chicago, at
least, is not begging.^ Nevertheless much of the
peddling in the streets is merely legalized begging.
Usually the articles offered for sale are cheap wares
which are disposed of for whatever "you care to
give.'* Not infrequently the buyer gives four times
what the article is worth. There are hundreds of
cripples in Chicago who gain a livelihood by selling
pencils or shoestrings. Many of these are home-
less men. Pencils bought for thirty-five cents a
dozen retail for a dime, or whatever the purchaser
cares to tax himself. A peddler's license is a protec-
tion against the police and serves as a moral prop to
the beggar.

A peddler of shoestrings and pencils usually
measures his success by the number of sales made
in which no change is asked. He expects to be
overpaid. Sometimes he persuades himself he is
entitled to be overpaid. The business of "getting
by'' by "touching hearts" is usually spoken of as
"work." A peddler who works the North Side
will say: "I didn't work yesterday; the day before
I made three dollars and eighty-five cents." This
man considers himself a real cripple, because he has
locomotor ataxia. He is incensed when he meets a
one-armed peddler, because a man with one arm is
not a real cripple. Real cripples should have first
consideration. An able-bodied man who begs when

''The mayor's office issued about 6,000 free permits in 1922 to peddle
from house to house (not from wagon or cart), from basket or other receptacle,
only for a period of sixty days.

HOBOHEMIA

broke is beneath contempt. That is "panhandling''
and an able-bodied "panhandler" is always con-
sidered despicable.

Many peddlers live in Hobohemian hotels, and
spend their leisure on the "stem." When they go to
"work" they take a car. Some of them have regular
stands. Not infrequently a peddler will assume to
monopolize a position in front of a church or near the
entrance of a factory where girls go and come. Beg-
gars have a liberal fund of knowledge about pay
days. They know the factories where the workers,
when they have money, are "good."

STREET FAKING

The chief difference between peddling and street
faking is one of method. The peddler appeals to
the individual; the faker appeals to the crowd.'
The faker is a salesman. He "pulls" a stunt or 5
makes a speech to attract the crowd. The peddler
is more than often a beggar. It requires consider-
ably more initiative and force to play the role of a
street faker than to peddle.

Almost any time of the day at some street corner
of the "stem" one may see a faker with a crowd
around him. His wares consist perhaps of combina-
tion sets of cuff buttons and collar buttons, or some
other such "line." Success depends upon the nov-
elty of the article offered. A new line of goods is
much sought after and a good street faker changes his
line from time to time. Many fakers are homeless
men. Numbers of the citizens of Hobohemia have
tried their hand at some time or other at this kind of
salesmanship. Those who are able to "put it over"
generally stay with the work.

THE HOBO

Peddling jewelry is one old device for getting
money, but it is not too old to succeed. There are
men who carry with them cheap rings or watches
which they sell by approaching the prospective
buyers individually. Sometimes they gather a crowd
around them but that rarely succeeds as well as when
they work quietly. A faker may sit beside a man in
a park or approach him on the street and proffer a
ring or watch or pair of eyeglasses for sale cheap, on
the grounds that he is broke. Sometimes he will
pretend that he found the article and would like to
get a little money for it. Often he will tell of some
sentiment connected with an article that he is trying
to dispose of. A man may have a ring that his
mother gave him and he will only part with it on con-
dition that he might have the privilege of redeeming
it later. If he thought he could not redeem it he
would rather starve than part with it, etc. Hobos
are often the victims as well as the perpetrators of
these fakes.

GRAFTS OLD AND NEW

Few of these tricks are new but none of them are
so old that they do not yield some return. They
probably owe their long life to the proverbial identity
of fundamental human nature wherever it is found.

One of the most ancient and universal forms of
deception is the fake disease. In Hobohemia a pre-
tended affliction is called ''jiggers" or "bugs."

4. L. J. appealed to the Jewish Charities with a letter signed
\Jy a doctor in a hospital in Hot Springs saying that he had
treated L. J. who was suffering from syphilis and that his eyes
were affected and he would "undoubtedly go blind." It was
learned later that this letter was a forgery as were other creden-
tials that the man carried. He had been in a hospital and had

HOBOHEMIA

been treated for a venereal disease. While there he familiarized
himself enough with the terminology of the disease so that he
could talk with some intelligence about his case. He would say
with conviction, "I know I'm going blind before long." It
further developed that he had been exploiting charity organiza-
tions in several cities. Before his entry upon this deception it
was learned that he had earned a prison record.

An ancient ruse is to feign to be deaf and dumb!
A man who played "deaf-and-dumb" worked restau-
rants, drug stores, groceries, and other places of busi-
ness. He would enter the places and stand with cap
in hand. Never would he change the expression of
his face, regardless of what was said or done. When
spoken to he would point to his ears and mouth
until he received some money, and then he would
bow. If there was a chance of getting something, he
would never leave a place unless he was in danger of
being thrown out. An investigator followed him for
two hours before he learned he was neither deaf nor
dumb. Three months later he met the same man
working the same graft in another part of the city.

''The hat trick," as it is sometimes called, is a
popular means of "getting by." On a Sunday, a
holiday, or indeed any evening, the streets of Hobo-
hemia are likely to be enlivened by men who have a
message, haranguing the crowds. They may be
selling papers or books on the proletarian movement.
In any case, most of them terminate their speeches by
passing the hat. Few speakers spend their eloquence
on the audiences of Hobohemia without asking some-
thing in return. It must not be assumed that these
men are all insincere. Many of them are, but most
of them are in the "game" for the money it yields.
One of these orators is conspicuous because his stock

THE HOBO

in trade is a confession that he is not like the other
speakers. He admits that he is out for bed and
board. He will talk on any subject, will permit him-
self to be laughed at, and jollied by the crowd, but
when he passes the hat he usually gets enough for
another day's board.

The missions attract men who are religious pri-
marily for profit. Many who are really sincere find
it more profitable to be on the Lord's side. Nearly
every mission has a . corps of men who perform the
"hat trick" by going from house to house begging
old clothes or cash or whatever the people care to
give. The collector's conscience is the only check on
the amount of money taken in. Some missions
divide all cash collections with the solicitors. Some-
times the collector gets as much as fifty cents on the
dollar.

The exploitation of children is as old as the history
of vagrancy. Even the tramp has learned that on
the road boys may be used to get money. A boy
can beg better than an older man, and frequently
men will chum with boys for the advantages such
companionships give them. Boys who are new on
the road are often willing to be exploited by a vet-
eran in exchange for the things they can learn from
him.

"working the folks"

There is a type of tramp who lives on his bad
reputation. He may have been sent away for the
sake of the family, or have fled for safety, or he may
have gone voluntarily to start life anew. Seldom
does he succeed, but family pride stands between
him and his return. He capitalizes the fact that his
family does not want him to return.

HOBOHEMIA

Such a man resides on South State Street. He
comes from a good family but his relatives do not
care to have him about. He is fat and greasy and
dirty; he seems to have no opinions of his own; is
always getting into people's way and making himself
disagreeable by his effort to be sociable. His rela-
tives pay him four dollars a week to stay in Chicago.
On that amount, with what he can earn, he is able
to live.'

Another man raises funds now and then when he
is broke by writing or telegraphing that he is think-
ing about returning home. His return means
trouble. His requests for assistance are a kind
of blackmail levied on the family.^

"white collar" begging

Most interesting among the beggars is the man,
the well-dressed and able-bodied individual, who begs
on the strength of his affiliations. These are the men
who make a specialty of exploiting their membership
in fraternal organizations. Labor unions are very
much imposed upon by men who carry paid-up cards
but who are temporarily "down." The organiza-
tions as such are not appealed to as much as individ-
ual members. It is hard for a union man who is
working to turn away a brother who shows that he
is in good standing with the organization.

Of late the "ex-service-man" story has been a
good means of getting consideration, and the Ameri-
can Legion buttons have been worked to the limit.
Most of the men who wear parts of a uniform or
other insignia indicative of military service have

'Unpublished Document iii.
2 Unpublished Document 112.

THE HOBO

really seen service and many have seen action, but a
great many of them have heard more than they have
seen.

There are men who make a specialty of "working"
the charity organizations. Some of them are so
adept that they know beforehand what they will be
asked and have a stereotyped response for every
stereotyped question. These men know a surprising
amount about the inside workings of the charitable
agencies and they generously hand on their informa-
tion to their successor. They usually know, for
example, what material aid may be had from each
organization. A typical case is that of Brown.

5. Brown had not been in Chicago an hour until he had
located the chief organizations to which he might go for help. He
knew that he could check his bag at the Y.M.C.A. He learned
where to go for a bath, where to get clean clothes, how to get a
shave and haircut and he actually succeeded in getting some
money from the United Charities. He was able to "flop" in a
bed even though he came to town without money late in the
afternoon; whereas many other men in the same position would
have been forced to "carry the banner." He knew about the
charity organizations in all the cities he had visited from the
Atlantic to the Pacific. After his case was traced it was learned
that he told about the same story wherever he went and that he
was known in organizations in all the cities to which he referred.
He is 27 years old and has been living for the most part in institu-
tions or at the expense of organizations since he was 13.

6. Another case is that of P. S., a Jewish boy who made his
way between New York and Chicago three times and received
accommodation at the Jewish charity associations in nearly every
big city on his road between here and New York. He is a
mental case and goes to the Charities because of a sense of help-
lessness. Since the last contact with him that the Chicago
Jewish charities have had he has learned to get over the country
with a little more confidence but he never fails to hunt up the
welfare^' organization^as^soon as he comes to town. He was last
heard of in California.

HOBOHEMIA

BORROWING AND BEGGING

Nearly every homeless man "goes broke" at
times. Some of them do not feel that a trip to town
has been a success if they return to the job with
money in their pockets. On the other hand, they do
not feel that they have had their money's worth
unless they remain in town a week or two after they
have "blown in.*' As they linger they face the
problem of living. They may have friends but that is
unusual. The homeless man used to get advances
from the saloon keeper with whom he spent his
money. Such loans were often faithfully made good,
but they were just as often "beat." Prohibition has
put an end to that kind of philanthropy.

Many of the men who visit the city intermittently
loaf and work by turns. These men often beg but
they do not remain at it long, perhaps a day or so, or
until disgust seizes them. Often when they beg they
are drunk or "rum-dum." As soon as they are sober
they quit. Sometimes they succeed in attaching
themselves to a friend who has just arrived with a
"roll." But living at the expense of another
migrant quickly palls. Soon they will be found
scanning the "boards" for free shipment to another
job. They disappear from the streets for a season.
As soon as they get a "stake," however, they will be
seen again treating the boys and swapping stories
on the "main stem"; if not in Chicago, then in
some other city. It is the life.

The more interesting types are those who live
continuously in the city and are broke most of the
time. Some of them have reduced the problem of
"getting by" to an art. The tramp who only
occasionally goes "broke" may try to imitate these

THE HOBO

types but he soon tires of the game and goes to work.
The chief classes of beggars are the "panhandlers"
and the "moochers."

The "panhandler" can sometimes extract from
the pockets of others what amounts to large sums of
money. Some "panhandlers" are able to beg from
ten to twenty dollars a day. The "panhandler" is
a beggar who knows how to beg without loss of
dignity. He is not docile and fawning. He appeals
in a frank, open manner and usually "comes away
with the goods." The "moocher" begs for nickels
and dimes. He is an amateur. He goes to the back
door of a house or hotel and asks for a sandwich.
His appeal is to pity.

The antagonisms between beggars and peddlers are
very keen. The man who carries a permit to peddle
has no respect for the individual who merely begs.
Nevertheless, some peddlers, when business is slov/,
themselves turn beggars. On the other hand, the
man who begs professes to consider himself far more
respectable than the peddler who uses his license as
an excuse to get money. This is the language and
opinion of a professional: "Good begging is far more
honorable than bad peddling and most of this shoe-
string and lead pencil peddling is bad. I am not
going to beat around the bush. I am not going to do
any of this petty grafting to get enough to live on."'
These antagonisms are evidence of a struggle for
status. When a peddler denounces the beggars he
is trying to justify himself. His philosophy, like
most philosophies, is an attempt to justify his voca-
tion. The same is true of plain beggars. Most of
them are able to justify their means of "getting by."

1 Unpublished Document 113.

HOBOHEMIA

STEALING

Hobos are not clever enough to be first-class
crooks nor daring enough to be classed as criminals.
Yet most of them will steal something to eat. There v
are men who are peculiarly expert at stealing food
from back-door steps — pies or cakes that have been
set out to cool, for example. There are men who
wander about the residential areas, in order to steal
from back doors. Some men follow the milkman as
he goes from door to door delivering milk and
cream, in order to steal a bottle when the opportunity
offers. A quart of milk makes an excellent break-
fast.

Stealing becomes serious when men break into
stores and box cars. It is not what they take but
what they spoil that does the damage. This is the
chief complaint of the railroad against the tramp.
In the country the tramp is often destructive to the
orchards he visits. He will shake down more fruit
than he can possibly use and dig up a dozen hills of
potatoes to get enough for a "mulligan.'*

"jack rolling"

"Jack rolling" may be anything from picking a
man's pocket in a crowd to robbing him while he is
drunk or asleep. On every "stem" there are a
goodly number of men who occasionally or continu-
ally "roll" their fellow-tramps. Nearly every mi-
grant who makes periodical trips to the city after
having saved his earnings for three or four months
can tell of at least one encounter with the *'jack
roller." Scarcely a day goes by on Madison Street
but some man is relieved of a "stake" by some

THE HOBO

*'jack" who will, perhaps, come around later and
join in denouncing men who will rob a workingman.

The average hobo is often indiscreet with his
money, and especially so when he is drunk. He
often displays it, even scatters it at times. This is a
great temptation to men who have been living "close
to their bellies" for months. As unpopular as the
"jack roller" is among the tramps there are few who
would overlook an opportunity to take a few dollars
from a "drunk," seeing that he was in possession of
money that someone else was bound to take sooner
or later.

7. An investigator became acquainted with two men who
were jack rollers who operated on Madison Street west of Halsted.
They were well dressed for the "street" though not so well
groomed as to be conspicuous. The investigator pretended to
them that he had just spent ninety days in the jail in Salt Lake
City for "rolling" a drunk. They had no sympathy for a man
who would get drunk and wallow in the gutter. "He's not
entitled to have any money." Neither of these men drank but
they "chased women" and one of them played the races. Neither
had any scruples against taking money from a drunken or
sleeping man. They were able to justify themselves as easily
as the peddlers and beggars do. Said one of them, " Everybody
is eating on everybody he can get at, and they don't care where
they bite. Believe me, as long as I can play safe I'm going to
get mine."

"getting by" in winter

During the cold winter months the problem of
"getting by" becomes serious. In the spring, sum-
mer, and fall hobos can sleep in the parks, in vacant
houses, on the docks, in box cars, or in any other
place where they may curl up and pass a few hours
in slumber without fear of disturbance. But find-
ing "flops" in winter usually engages the best effort
a "bo" can muster. Besides food and shelter, the

HOBOHEMIA

hobo must manage in some way to secure winter
clothing. Above all he needs shelter, and shelter
for the man without money is not easy to find in the
city.

The best scouting qualities the average man can
command are needed to get along in winter. There
are many places to sleep and loaf during the day, but
the good places are invariably crowded. For sleep-
ing quarters police stations, railroad depots, door-
ways, mission floors, and even poolrooms are pressed
into service. It is not uncommon for men who can-
not find a warm place to sleep to walk the streets
all night. This practice of walking the streets all
night, snatching a wink of sleep here and a little rest
there, is termed, in the parlance of the road, ''carry-
ing the banner." He who "carries the banner'* ,
during the night usually tries to snatch a bit of sleep '
during the day in places he does not have access to
in the night time. He may go into the missions,
but in cold weather the missions are crowded.
They are crowded with men who sit for hours in a
stupor between sleeping and waking. In almost
every mission on the "stem" there are attendants
known as "bouncers," whose duties during the
meetings are to shake and harass men who have lost
themselves in slumber.

Lodging-houses are also imposed upon by men
who have no money to pay for a bed but who loaf
in the lobbies during the day. Most lodging-houses
make an effort to keep men out who are not guests.
Fear is instilled into their hearts by occasionally
calling the police to clear the lobbies of loafers. All
who dare spend their leisure time in the public library,
but the average tramp, unkempt and unclean from a

THE HOBO

night on the street, cannot muster sufficient courage
to enter a public library.

The missions and other charity organizations play
an important part in supplying the cold-weather
wants of the tramp. They usually make it a point
to get on hand at the beginning of winter a large
supply of overcoats, or "bennies/' and other clothes
that are either sold at moderate prices or are given
away. Such clothes are usually solicited from the
public, and the men on the "stem'* believe that they
are entitled to them. Hence each man makes an
effort to get what he feels is coming to him. When
winter comes they begin to bestir themselves and
concoct schemes for securing the desired amount of
clothing to keep out the cold. During the winter
time many of these men will submit to being "con-
verted" in order to get food and shelter.

Competition between homeless men in winter is
keen. Food is scarce, jobs are less plentiful, people
are less generous, and there are more men begging.
Many of the short-job men become beggars and a
large number of those who are able to peddle during
the summer likewise enter the ranks of the beggars.
As beggars multiply, the housewife is less generous
with the man at the back door, the man on the street
also hardens his heart, and the police are called on for
protection.

8. "Fat" is a very efficient "panhandler." He does not
always "panhandle" but works when the opportunities present
and the weather permits. He gets his money from men on the
street, but he does most of his begging in winter when he cannot
get the courage to leave town. He can beg for three or four
hours and obtain about three dollars in that time. He only
"panhandles" when his money is gone. He has a good person-
ality and appeals for help in a frank, open manner giving no hard-

HOBOHEMIA

luck story. He says that he is a workingman temporarily down
and that he is trying to get some money to leave town. He
does not work the same street every day. He keeps sober.

He has no moral scruples against begging, nor against work.
He works and works well when circumstances force him to it.
He doesn't feel mean when out begging or "stemming." He
looks upon it as a legitimate business and better than stealing,
and so long as the situation is such he might as well make the
best of it. He seldom "panhandles" in summer.

He has an interesting philosophy. He calculates that accord-
ing to the law of averages out of each hundred persons he begs,
a certain number will turn him down, a certain number will
"bawl him out," a certain number will give him advice, and a
certain number will give him something, and his earnings will
average about three dollars. So he goes at the job with vigor
each time in order to get it over as soon as possible. "You get
to expect about so much police interference and so much opposi-
tion from the people, and you get more of this in winter than in
summer, but that is the case in whatever line you go into."

"Fat" works and begs as the notion strikes him but he does
less begging in summer and less work in winter. If he doesn't
hke one city he goes to another. Last winter (1921-22) he was
in Chicago, not because he likes Chicago but because he hap-
pened to be here.

THE GAME OF " GETTING BY"

Getting by'' is a game not without its elements
of fascination. The man who "panhandles" is
getting a compensation that is not wholly measured ^
by the nickels and dimes he accumulates. Even the/
peddler of shoestrings likes to think of "good days"
when he is able to surpass himself. It matters not
by what means "the down-and-out" gets his living;
he manages to find a certain satisfaction in the game.
The necessity of "putting it over" has its own
compensations.

No group in Hobohemia is wholly without status.
In every group there are classes. In jail grand

THE HOBO

larceny is a distinction as against petit larceny. In
Hobohemia men are judged by the methods they use
to **get by/' Begging, faking, and the various other
devices for gaining a livelihood serve to classify these
men among themselves. It matters not where a
man belongs, somewhere he has a place and that
place defines him to himself and to his group. No
matter what means an individual employs to get a
living he struggles to retain some shred of self-respect.
Even the outcast from home and society places a high
value upon his family name.

9. S. R. is an Englishman fifteen years in this country.
When he came to the United States to earn a "stake" he left his
wife in England. His intention was to save enough money to
send for her. He came here partly to overcome his love for
alcohol but he found as much drink here and it was as accessible.
He earned "big money" as a bricklayer but he never saved any.
He became ashamed of himself after a year or two and ceased to
write to his wife. That is, he had other interests here.

Today he is a physical wreck. He is paralyzed on one side
and he is also suffering from tuberculosis brought on by injudi-
cious exposure and drink. He told his story but asked that his
real name, which he told, should not be used. For, he said, " I am
the only one who has ever disgraced that name."

Several old men on West Madison Street are liv-
ing on mere pittances but are too proud to go to the
poorhouse. They much prefer to take their chances
with other mendicants. They want to play the game
to the end. As long as they are able to totter about
the street and hold out their hands they feel that they
are holding their own. To go to an institution
would mean that they had given up. Dependent as
they are and as pitiful as they look, they still have
enough self-respect to resent the thought of complete
surrender.

HOBOHEMIA

In the game of "getting by" the homeless man is
practically sure sooner or later to lose his economic
independence. At any time (except perhaps in
periods of prolonged unemployment), only a small
proportion of homeless men are grafters, beggars,
fakers, or petty criminals. Yet, all the time, the
migratory casual workers are living from hand to
mouth, always perilously near the margin of depend-
ence. Consequently, few homeless men have not
been temporary dependents, and great numbers of
them must in time become permanent dependents.

This process of personal degradation of the migra-
tory casual worker from economic independence to
pauperism is only an aspect of the play of economic
forces in modern industrial society. Seasonal indus-
tries, business cycles, alternate periods of employ-
ment and of unemployment, the casualization of
industry, have created this great industrial reserve
army of homeless, foot-loose men which concentrates
in periods of slack employment, as winter, in strategic
centers of transportation, our largest cities. They
must live; the majority of them are indispensable in
the present competitive organization of industry;
agencies and persons moved by religious and philan-
thropic impulses will continue to alleviate their
condition; and yet their concentration in increasing
numbers in winter in certain areas of our large cities
cannot be regarded otherwise than as a menace. The
policy of allowing the migratory casual laborer to
"get by" is, however, easier and cheaper at the
moment, even if the prevention of the economic
deterioration and personal degradation of the home-
less men would, in the long run, make for social
efficiency and national economy.

PART II

TYPES OF HOBOS

CHAPTER V

WHY DO MEN LEAVE HOME?

WHY are there tramps and hobos? What are
the conditions and motives that make migra-
tory workers, vagrants, homeless men ? Attempts
to answer these questions have invariably raised other
questions even more difficult to answer. Homeless
men themselves are not always agreed in regard to
the matter. The younger men put the blame upon
circumstance and external conditions. The older
men, who know life better, are humbler. They are
disposed to go to the other extreme and put all the
blame on themselves.

lo. "My old man tried his d — dest to get me to go to school;
but no, I couldn't learn anything in school. I could make my
own way. I could get along without the old man or his advice.
Well, when I woke up I was forty years old, of course it was too
late. I couldn't go back. That's what's the matter with half
of these d — d kids on the road. No one can tell them anything.
They're burning up to learn something on their own hook; and
they'll learn it, too."

From the records and observations of a great
many men the reasons why men leave home seem to
fall under several heads: {a) seasonal work and
unemployment, {b) industrial inadequacy, {c) defects
of personality, {d) crises in the life of the person,
{e) racial or national discrimination, and (/) wander-
lust.

SEASONAL WORK AND UNEMPLOYMENT

Chief among the economic causes why men leave
home are (i) seasonal occupations, (2) local changes
in industry, (3) seasonal fluctuations in the demand
for labor, and (4) periods of unemployment. The

[61

THE HOBO

cases of homeless men studied in Chicago show how
these conditions of work tend to require and to create
the migratory worker.

1) The industrial attractions of seasonal work
often make a powerful appeal to the foot-loose man
and boy. A new railroad that is building, a mining
camp just opening up, an oil boom widely advertised,
a bumper crop to be harvested in Kansas or the
Dakotas fire the imagination and bring thousands of
recruits each year into the army of seasonal and
migratory workers.

II. Fifty-eight years old and born in Belgium. He came to
this country with his parents in 1882. His family moved to a farm
in northern Wisconsin where they remained several years. The
boy worked during his spare time in the woods. His father soon
became tired of farming and decided he could do better in the coal
camps of southern IlHnois, for he had been a miner in Belgium.
After the family moved, the boy grew restless in the mining town
and decided to return to his old home town in Wisconsin where
he could get a job in the woods which was more to his liking. For
several years he divided his time between the northern woods in
winter and the mines at his Illinois home in summer. But he
never liked coal mining and later began to go to the harvest
fields for his summer employment. Sometimes he worked on
railroad construction or at other seasonal work. He has spent
several winters in Chicago, and usually (he says) he has been
able to pay his way. However this year, 1921-22, he has been
eating some at the missions.

This case shows the steps by which a stationary
seasonal worker becomes a migratory worker. It
indicates how easily and naturally the migrant may
sink still lower in the economic scale until he spends
his winters in Hobohemia feeding at the missions."

2) Local changes in industry dislocate the routine
of work of the wage-earner. The timber in certain
regions gives out, mines close down when the ore is

TYPES OF HOBOS

exhausted or when prices drop, or in the reorganiza-
tion of an industry a branch factory may be aban-
doned. Under these circumstances, certain workers
are compelled to look elsewhere for employment.
Those who are free to move naturally migrate. The
following case is that of a migratory worker who
with the passing of the West finds it difficult to make
the necessary adjustment.

12. A. is the pioneer type of hobo. He came to Chicago
because he was pressed eastward by the closing down of the mines
in the West. He is about fifty years old. He was born in south-
ern Illinois but grew restless on the farm. He left home in his
teens to drive a team on the railroad grades. He moved West
with the railroad building. He got into the mining game at
Cripple Creek, and then turned prospector. He spent a couple
of years in the mines of Alaska. He has never been able to
attach himself to an old established camp. He has worked in
the mines of northern Michigan but did not like it there. He
regrets that he came East. He says that he was never so hope-
lessly down in the West. He plans to go back where he knows
people and where he can go out and get some kind of a job when
he feels like going to work.

This man always carried a bundle in the West. He laments
that he found it necessary to throw his bed away when he came
East. He claims that a man with a bed and a desire to work can
get along better in the West than he has seen anyone get along
here. Out there he only went to town four or five times a year.
The rest of the time he was out in the hills. Out there he could
always find work (until this recent industrial depression), but
here he has not seen any jobs he cares for.

3) Seasonal fluctuations in the demand for labor
accompanied by the seasonal rise and fall in wages
have greatly affected the ebb and flow of workers.

Industrial fluctuations may be classed as cyclical and sea-
sonal. Cyclical fluctuations result from business depressions and
at times double the amount of loss of time during a year, which is
illustrated by the fact that the railroads employed 236,000 fewer

THE HOBO

men in 1908 than in 1907. Seasonal fluctuations may either be
inappreciable, as in municipal utiHties, or may displace nearly
the entire labor force. The seasonal fluctuations in the canning
industry in California, for example, involve nearly nine-tenths
of all the workers; in logging camps, which depend upon the
snow, operations are practically suspended in summer; while in
the brick and tile industry only 36.5 per cent of the total number
of employees are retained during the dull season. Irregularities
in the conduct of industry and in the method of employing labor
are evident in dock work, in the unskilled work in iron and steel,
and in slaughtering and meat packing; in the competitive condi-
tions in industries which force employers to cut labor cost down
to the utmost and to close down in order to save operating
expenses; in speculative practices which result in the piling up
of orders and alternate periods of rush production and inactivity;
in loss of time due to inefficient management within plants. In
some cases it has been charged, although without definite proof,
that irregularity of employment is due to a deliberate policy of
employers in order to lessen the chance of organized movement,
as well as to keep the level of wages down in unskilled occupations
by continually hiring new individuals.^

4) Periods of unemployment throw hundreds of
thousands of men out of work. But the effects of
unemployment are not ended with the passing of the
period of business depression. The majority of men,
it is true, return to work with their economic effi-
ciency little if any impaired by the stress and strain
of uncertainty and deprivation. But upon thou-
sands of men the enforced period of idleness has had
a disorganizing effect.^ The demoralizing effect of
being out of work is particularly marked upon the
unskilled laborer. His regular routine of work has
been interrupted; habits of loafing are easily acquired.

^ Final Report of the Commission on Industrial Relations (191 5), pp. 163-64.

' B. Seebohm Rountree, Unemployment; A Social Study. London, 191 1.
See especially chap. "Detailed Descriptions of Selected Families," where
the demoralizing effects of unemployment upon the laborer are clearly indicated.

TYPES OF HOBOS

The path of personal degradation may lead to the
"bread line" at the mission, and from there to pan-
handling in the Loop.

An increasingly large number of laborers go downward
instead of upward. Young men, full of ambition and high hopes
for the future start their life as workers, but meeting failure after
failure in establishing themselves in some trade or calling, their
ambitions and hopes go to pieces, and they gradually sink into
the ranks of migratory and casual workers. Continuing their
existence in these ranks they begin to lose self-respect and become
"hobos." Afterwards, acquiring certain negative habits, as
those of drinking, begging, and losing all self-control, self-respect,
and desire to work, they become "down-and-outs" — tramps,
bums, vagabonds, gamblers, pickpockets, yeggmen, and other
petty criminals — in short, public parasites, the number of whom
seems to be growing faster than the general population.^

THE INDUSTRIALLY INADEQUATE

Every year thousands of men fail in the struggle
for existence. For one reason or another, they can-
not, or at least they do not, keep the pace set by
modern large-scale industry. These men are "mis-
fits,** industrially inadequate.

The majority of individuals, commonly regarded
as industrially inadequate, are probably feeble-
minded or restless types like the emotionally unstable
and the egocentric and fall into the group of defective
personalities to be considered later. Other causes of
industrial incompetency are (i) physical handicaps
due to accidents, sickness, or occupational diseases;
(2) alcoholism and drug addiction; and (3) old age.

i) The workers in certain industries are exposed
to dangerous dusts and gases. The printers have
learned the risks of their trade and endeavor to cope
with them. Other industries have taken steps to

* Final Report of the Commission on Industrial Relations (191 5), p. 157.

THE HOBO

eliminate industrial hazards. Many transients are
miners who go from one job to another exposing
themselves to different dangers.

13. O. O. is fifty-three years old and he has been a migrant
for many years. He has been a lumber-jack and a harvest hand.
He has tried his hand at various casual jobs but most of his time
has been spent in the mines. He used to work in the most
dangerous mines because they generally pay the most money.
Three years ago (about 191 9) while working in the copper mines
in Butte, Montana, he contracted miner's "con," which is some
sort of lung trouble. He had no place to go, could not hold a
job, and has wandered about the country ever since. He has no
hope of regaining his health and is too proud to return to his
people who live in Ohio.

Other industries also have their victims.

14. G. T. came from the New England states. He was
wandering about the country in hope of regaining his health.
He was a textile worker and claims that the dyes and dust were
the cause of his condition. There was no means at hand of prov-
ing his story but the fact that he was in ill health, very much
underweight, and he was not able to do heavy work. Numerous
times he was rebuked because he asked for light work.

Many men in Hobohemia have limbs or parts of
limbs missing, or bent and twisted bodies. These
are victims of industrial or non-industrial accidents.

15. Red begs and sometimes peddles pencils along Halsted
Street. He lost his leg several years ago while working in the
coal mines. In his sober moments he claims that his own care-
lessness was partly to blame for his loss, but he also holds that
the company was negligent. His leg at first had only been
bruised and he went back to work in a damp, cold place, and
inflammation set in. He has since become accommodated to a
life of begging and peddling.

2) Alcoholism decreases the economic efficiency
of the worker and so tends to depress him into the
group of homeless men. Before prohibition the

TYPES OF HOBOS

saloon had no better patron than the homeless man.
In Chicago today bootleggers and blind pigs in the
vicinity of the "stem" thrive upon the homeless
man's love for liquor.

1 6. E. J. loafs on West Madison Street and South State
Street. He drinks and does not care who knows it. He has
been a drinking man for years. "Booze put me on the bum.
Now, I'm here and I'm too old to be good for anything, so why
not keep it up ? You're goin* t' die when your time comes any-
way; so why not keep it up ?" His philosophy helps him to
live and he lives as well as he can by begging a little, working when
any jobs come his way. He used to be a carpenter but has lost
his efficiency at that trade. He threw up his membership in
the union several years ago.

Drinking is responsible for keeping many men on
the road. One man said that he left home because
he had too many drinking friends. He has been on
the road for several years but wherever he goes he
finds other drinking friends. An old man refuses to
live with his children in the country because he can-
not get his "morning's morning" while with them.
They have written him time and again but he does
not answer.

Drug addiction likewise decreases the industrial
efficiency of its victims. Drug addicts among home-
less men seldom are transient. Those who are
transient are often cocaine users who are able to
do without the drug for considerable periods of time.
Not infrequently "coke heads" or "snow-birds" are
found among the hobo workers. When on out-of-
town jobs, they are prone to go to town occasionally
to indulge in a cocaine spree much as a "booze-
hoister" indulges in a liquor spree. When their
money is gone they return to work and do not touch
the "snow " for weeks or months. Users of heroin or

THE HOBO

morphine are not able to separate themselves from
the source of supply for so long a time.

Because of the secret nature of the practice, the
extent of drug addiction among homeless men is
unknown. Men who use drugs are loath to disclose
the fact to anyone but drug users. The drug addict
employs every scheme to keep his practice a secret
whereas the drinkipg man strives to share his joy
with others. The fear of being discovered drives
many addicts from the circle of their family and
friends and many of them drift into the homeless
man areas where they enjoy the maximum seclusion.

17. The investigator was accosted by a beggar in the Loop,
He was impressed by the fervor and the hurry with which the
man begged him and was away. He followed the man for several
blocks and watched him accost more than a hundred persons,
all men. The only men from whom he failed to solicit were
those accompanied by women. If two men were standing two
or three yards apart he accosted each one individually. Only
one or two men gave him anything. Most of them looked with
suspicion at him, and not without reason, for although he was
fairly well dressed he was very dirty and his clothes looked as if
he had been sleeping out. He had a pallid, leaden complexion,
and he had a ten days* growth of beard. He had a wild, hunted
expression and impressed the investigator as being a drug addict.
He continued to follow the man and engaged him in conversation.
He learned that he had just beat his way from Boston. He had
ridden passenger trains all the way and had come in less than
three days. His only difficulty was in Buffalo where he says that
a policeman pulled him off the train and beat him. Why he
left Boston he would not say. He denied being a "dope" then
and it was not till three days later when he was seen in Grant
Park that he admitted the fact. He came to Chicago because
he knew more people here and was certain of getting morphine.

Drug users need as much as three or four dollars
a day, and even more, to supply their wants. As a
rule they are physically unfit to earn a living. They

TYPES OF HOBOS

cannot live as the hobos do because the average hobo
does not have money enough to buy drugs. They
may be forced to Hve in cheap hotels and to eat in
cheap restaurants but only to save money to satisfy
the craving for ''dope." Drug addicts wander very
little except to make rapid trips from city to city.
The drug addict tends to become a criminal rather
than a migratory worker. Their natural habitat is
the great city.

3) Many old men in the tramp class are not able to
work and are too independent to go to the almshouse.
Some of them have spent their lives on the road.
These old, homeless men usually find their way to the
larger cities. Unlike the younger men they have no
dreams and no longer burn with the desire to travel.
Many have been self-supporting until they were over-
taken by senility. It is pitiable to see an old man
tottering along the streets living a hand-to-mouth
existence.

18. J. is an old man who lives in a cheap hotel on South
Desplaines Street, where a few cents a day will house him. He is
seventy-two, very bent and gray. Once he was picked up on
the street in winter and sent to the hospital where he remained a
day or two and was transferred to the poor house at Oak Forest.
He ran away from the poor house two years ago and has managed
to live. He seldom gets more than a block or two from his lodg-
ing. Even today (1923) he may be seen on a cold day shivering
without an overcoat on Madison Street. He is a good beggar
and manages to get from fifty cents to a dollar a day from the
"boys" on the "stem." Sometimes during the warm weather
he makes excursions of three to five blocks away on begging tours.
He is exceedingly feeble and walking that distance is hard work
for him. Work is out of the question. There are very few
jobs that he could manage.

This case is typical. During the summer time,
when it is possible to sit outdoors in comfort, num-

THE HOBO

bers of old men may be found in groups on the pave-
ments or in the parks. In winter they are too much
occupied seeking food and shelter.

The physically handicapped and industrially ineffi-
cient individuals are numerous among the homeless
men. The handicap is, in part at least, the reason
of their presence in that class. Competition with
able-bodied workers forces them into the scrap heap.

DEFECTS OF PERSONALITY

Psychological and sociological studies of vaga-
bondage in France, Italy, and Germany have led to
the conclusion that the vagabond is primarily a psy-
chopathic type.^ The findings of European psycho-
pathologists are, of course, the result of case-studies
of beggars and wanderers in these countries and can-
not without reservation be accepted for the United
States. Undoubtedly there are large numbers of
individuals with defects of personalities among
American hobos and tramps, but there are also large
numbers of normal individuals. The American tradi-
tion of pioneering, wanderlust, seasonal employ-
ment, attract into the group of wanderers and
migratory workers a great many energetic and
venturesome normal boys and young men.

William Healy, for several years director of the
Psychopathic Institute of Chicago, sums up the rela-
tion of mental deficiency to vagabondage in these
words :

We have seen vagabondage in connection with feeble-
mindedness, epilepsy, dementia precox, but we have also seen the
same behavior in normal boys who had conceived a grudge, with
or without good reasons, against home conditions. Again, we

* See Bibliography, p. 287.

TYPES OF HOBOS

have seen normal lads who have been seeking larger experiences
in this way.^

Dr. Healy's observations were made primarily
with juveniles, but he adds cautiously a conclusion
as to the explanation of adult vagabondage:

When vagabondage is continued beyond the unstable years
of adolescence, generalizations on the character of the individuals
are more likely to be correct. But even here the only chance of
adequate conception of the relationship between the behavior
and the type of individual who engages in it is to be found in a
personal study of him.

The proportion of feeble-minded is popularly sup-
posed to be higher among the migratory and casual
laborer than in the general population. In the
earlier studies, only the most obvious cases of mental
defect were noted. Mrs. Solenberger by common-
sense observation or medical examinations found only
eighty-nine of the one thousand men she examined to
be feeble-minded, epileptic, or insane.^

In recent years mental tests have been given to
small groups of unemployed men, in which the types
of the hobo, tramp^ and bum were well represented.
Knollin found 20 per cent of the 150 hobos he tested
feeble-minded.^ Pintner and Toops examined two
groups of applicants at Ohio free employment agencies
by standardized tests other than the Stanford revi-
sion of the Binet-Simon. Of the 94 men taking the
tests at Columbus, 28.7 per cent were diagnosed as
feeble-minded. Of the 40 unemployed men examined
at Dayton 7.5 per cent were assigned to the feeble-

^ The Individual Delinquenty pp. 776-79.

^ One Thousand Homeless Men, pp. 88-89.

3 L. M. Terman, The Measurement of Intelligence, p. 1 8.

THE HOBO

minded class.^ Glenn R. Johnson gave the Stan-
ford revision of the Binet-Simon tests to 107 men
out of work in Portland, and found 18 per cent
feeble-minded, i.e., under twelve years mental age.^
As he had expected, he found the proportion of infe-
rior intelligence lower than that of the 62 business
men and high-school students upon which Terman
had standardized his tests for adults, but he also
found among hobos a higher percentage of superior
adults. He found also that the higher the intelli-
gence of the individual the shorter the period of
holding a job among the unemployed. The testing
of an unselected group of 653 men in the army by
the Stanford revision of the Binet-Simon tests affords
an interesting opportunity for a comparison with the
results of the Portland study.

This comparison would indicate that the intelli-
gence of the unemployed is not lower, but, if any-
thing, higher than that of the adult males tested in
army camps. Apparently other factors than intelli-
gence are decisive in determining whether an indi-
vidual is employable or unemployable, or whether
he makes or fails to make an adequate adjustment in
the normal routine of industrial organization.

The defects in personality commonly found in the
cases of homeless men studied in Chicago are those
noted by the students of vagabondage and unem-
ployment, namely, feeble-mindedness, constitutional
inferiority, emotional instability, and egocentricity.
In a survey of 100 cases of unemployment which had

^ Rudolph Pintner and H. A. Toops, "Mental Tests of Unemployed Men,"
Journal of Applied Psychology ^ I (1917), 325-4I; II (1918), 15-25.

2 "Unemployment and Feeble-mindedness," Journal of Delinquency ^ II
(1917). 59-73-

TYPES OF HOBOS

been received as patients in the Boston Psychopathic
Hospital, Dr. Herman M. Adler found that 43 fell
into the class oi paranoid personality (egocentricity).
The next largest group of 35 cases was assigned to
the class of inadequate personality (mentally defective

Mental Capacity of Army Group and of Port-
land Unemployed as Measured by
Stanford-Binet

Mental Age

Army Group

Portland
Unemployed

653 Cases

105 Cases

Per Cent

0.1

0-3

0.2

1-9

3-4

1-9

9-5

3-8

10. 1

6.7

10.6

5-7

12.4

8.6

10.6

16.2

II. 8

18. 1

9.6

II. 4

8.3

9-5

7.2

7-6

5-2

7.6

0.8

2.9

or feeble-minded). The remaining cases, 11 in num-
ber, were diagnosed as emotionally unstable person-
ality. An analysis of the months employed per case
showed that the emotionally unstable group aver-
ages 50 months to each job; the inadequate group
24.7 months to each job; and the paranoid group
20.6 months to each job.^

Many individuals not feeble-minded find their
way into the group of casual and migratory workers

^Herman M. Adler, "Unemployment and Personality — A Study of Psy-
chopathic Cases," Mental Hygiene^ I (January, 1917), 16-24.

THE HOBO

by reason of other defects of personality, for example,
emotional instability and egocentricity. Among
transient laborers the very great turnover cannot be
entirely accounted for by industrial conditions.
Much of their shifting from scene to scene is indica-
tive of their emotional instability and restlessness.

19. W. E. was born in a little village in Kentucky. His first
job away from home was on the section. When he learned that
it was the meanest job on the railroad he decided to change. He
got a job on an extra-gang where he moved about considerably,
worked in several towns during the summer. Later got a steady
job on a farm but he soon tired of "eating at the same table day
after day" and he went to Kansas City where he worked in a
box factory. He became expert at it but soon tired of using
the same tools, and working as fast as possible day after day, and
he changed. He worked in several factories making boxes but
there was no difference. Then with his meager experience with
tools he got in the maintenance of way work of a railroad. Here
he had some variety and remained a year. Decided he wanted
to work in the mines and he got a job timbering. Later he tried
his hand at millwright work but he soon quit that and went
back to the bridge gang. He still goes to town every month or
two to spend his money and each time he goes out to some
different job.

In hard times when work is scarce and wages are
low, voluntary quitting of jobs is much less than in
good times. Hobos are easily piqued and they will
"walk off" the job on the slightest pretext, even when
they have the best jobs and living conditions are
relatively good. Hobo philosophy is disposed to .
represent the man who is a long time on the job as a
piker. He ought to leave a job once in a while simply
to assert his independence and to learn something
else about other jobs. The following case shows the
relation of instabihty and egocentricity to labor ^
turnover:

TYPES OF HOBOS

20. Yes, Pete had had plenty of good jobs, but something had
always gone against him. At one place not long ago they wanted
him to continue work in spite of the dust which was blowing
everywhere. Another rude employer never spoke to him (or any
other of the employees) politely.

No one should work for a man like that. Upon another
occasion the boss suggested reform of a certain habit — as if he
had any right to tell an American citizen what he ought to do.

He had worked at almost everything, but it went against
his very nature to do one thing very long. He would, in two or
three weeks, quit and look for a different occupation. Why he
quit, I am sure he didn't know. "Independence," "Justice,"
and "American Equality" furnished the material for his excuses,
but they were only excuses.

A survey of the so-called "intellectuals" of Hobo-
hemia reveals a group of egocentric and rebellious
natures who decry most things that are. Intellec-
tuals, just because they are highly organized and
specialized, are very likely to become misfits outside
of the environment to which they artificially are
adapted. When, added to this handicap, they lack
the discipline which a regular occupation affords they
are likely to become quite impossible.

21. H. has a great chart that he uses to preach evolution to
the curb-stone audiences. He has learned a few scientific terms
from one or two books he has read. He has no use for the modern
scientists. He considers them heretic. He is a student of Dar-
win "and those old timers." When pinned down he is not able
to discuss clearly what contributions the old-timers made or
what they believed.

t/ 22. D. H. is a student of economics according to Karl Marx.
He has no room in his thinking for any contribution of any other
man. Indeed, he does not think that anyone has made any
contribution since Marx. One of his stock phrases is "Now get
this into your heads. I am making it simple so that you can

Zderstand it."
23. B. is writing a novel. He has been working on it for
/eral years. He also writes songs, popular songs. But he has

THE HOBO

never sold a song nor has he ever been able to interest a publisher
in his novel. He calls the publishers a lot of grafters and claims
that they are in league to keep the poor writers down.

24. L. is a soap-box orator. He has one hobby. He is a
single-taxer. He is a great believer in Lincoln, Washington,
Jefferson. To him there is only one problem, to find out who is
exploiting the people, and there is only one remedy and that the
single tax. He will entertain no argument against the single tax.
Anyone who does not share his opinion is to be pitied.

The intellectuals are frequently egocentric. They
are obsessed by some peculiar point of view. As
egocentrics they are in conflict with the rest of the
world. Their cry is often a lament and just as often
a justification or defense.

>:i A study of individual cases seems to indicate that
there is a large proportion of inadequate personalities
among homeless men. The following cases indicate
the variety of ways in which personal defects lead
to a migratory existence which lands them eventu-
ally at the bottom of the social scale.

25. D. is a man who could not get along at home. He was
continually into difficulty with his father. He always had ideas
and schemes that his father thought foolish and he was never
permitted to carry any of them out. He still has the habit of
working up schemes and programs. One week he will be writing
a play. Again he will be inventing some mechanical device. He
has tried several different courses in mechanical engineering but
has not completed any of them.

26. F. has an idea that he can become a singer but he refuses
to spend his time in the rigid and arduous training that would be
required. He buys cheap books on voice culture. When he gets
money enough ahead to take lessons he forgets his musical ambi-
tion and drinks or gambles.

27. L. was the "simple Simon" in his home town. During the
war he was rejected for military service so he decided to go to
the city to work. Here he earned fair money, more than at home.
The people at home used to tease him but at first he got by fairly

TYPES OF HOBOS

well in Minneapolis. Later he went to Detroit because the
fellows where he worked in Minneapolis used "to run him."
They used to tease him in Detroit and he left two jobs there on
that account. He is the type of person that invites teasing. He
puts himself in the way of it but resents it if it reaches a certain
extent. With the slack season in industry in 1921-22 he had a
hard time to get along but he would not return home.

28. H. is a man who thinks that he is getting the worst of
every deal he has with others. He says that at home he was
imposed on by his people so he left. He is always on the lookout
for plots directed against him. If he is working along with others
on a job and a bad piece of work falls his way he concludes that
it happened purposely. However, he is ready to gloat over
favors. His best efforts are made to ingratiate himself with
others. Whenever he leaves a place, he does so with bitterness
in his heart. He usually keeps his grudge to himself.

29. M. is a good worker but a transient. He behaves well
when sober but he becomes quarrelsome when drunk. If he is
not discharged because of a drunken scene he usually quits volun-
tarily because he feels ashamed of himself. He argues a great
deal when sober but he has the ability to control himself. His
periods of drunkenness last from a week to ten days and are
staged whenever his finances will permit. Not infrequently he is
arrested while drunk.

CRISES IN THE LIFE OF THE PERSON

Crises in the life of the person, as family conflict,
for example, the feeling of failure, disgrace or embar-
rassment, the fear of punishment for the commission
of an offense may cause a man to desert home and
community. With the severance of family and social
ties the man or boy is all the more likely to drift
aimlessly from place to place, and at last perhaps
find himself permanently in the group of migratory
and casual laborers.

Conflict at home forces many men and boys into
the group of homeless men. Not infrequently boys
run away from home because of difficulties with their

THE HOBO

people. One youth says that his father tried to tell
him "where to head in at/' and he "wouldn't stand
for it." Another boy could not get along with his
brothers who were older than he. They tried to
"boss" him.

Many men in Hobohemia manifest no inclination
to wander but are as completely cut off from their
home associations as are the migrants. These men
of the "home guard" types may have had trouble
with their parents or with their wives.

30. H. claims that he was married and that he held a job as
traveHng salesman. He maintained an apartment on the South
Side where he left his wife while he was away on trips through the
Southwest. His story is that his wife was untrue to him and he
divorced her. This experience "broke him up" so that he quit
his job and went West where he remained a year. Today he
loafs on West Madison Street and blames his wife for his failure
in life. The divorced wife's story learned from other sources
lays considerable of the responsibility at his feet. This much of
his story is true: he was not in the tramp class before he married.
The circumstances surrounding his home trouble were unfortu-
nate and were partly due to the shortcomings of both.

31. G. lays the blame for his condition upon family trouble.
He has not lived with his wife for nine years. They are not
divorced because he and his wife are both Catholic and do not
believe in it. He worked most of the time before their separation
and claims that he owned his own home which is now in the pos-
session of his wife. What his wife is doing now he does not know
nor does he know anything about their child. He is content
where he is; doing just enough work to pay expenses.

Deaths in a family will sometimes turn a person
out into the world and he may drift into the hobo and
tramp group.

32. M.'s father died when he was about six years old. Five
years later his mother died. Kindly neighbors took him in
charge by turns. It seemed to him that wherever he was the
people would parade the fact that they were taking "care of"

TYPES OF HOBOS

someone else's child. It was charity. He stayed with several
different families. Some of them he liked and others he didn't.
Some sent him to school and others didn't seem to care what
became of him. More than one family tried to pass him on to
others on the ground that it was too much of an expense. When
he began to be old enough to work then they all wanted him.
He hated it all so he left the country. He came through Chicago
on his way to Texas. (A sixteen-year-old boy and small for his
age.) He said he had a brother in the cavalry who was stationed
in Texas. The brother tried to persuade him to wait till he had
saved enough money to pay his fare but he preferred to take his
"chances," so he was "beating his way."

Embarrassing situations often make it easier to
leave home than to remain and face the criticism or
sympathy of the public. On the road, a man is more
or less immune to attacks upon his self-consciousness
and self-respect, for his relations to other persons are
loose and transient and he has no status to maintain.
The opposite is true in his home town where his every
act is known.

33. One man who works in and near Chicago claims that he ^
was put on the "bum" by a woman. He was to have been married

to this girl and prepared for the wedding in good faith. A few
days before the ceremony she ran away with another man. He
was laughed at by his friends and rather than remain and for a
long time be the butt of the joke, he packed his things and has
not been back since. His home is in a country town in southern
Illinois, and although he has been near the place several times
during the past ten years he has never returned.

34. F. is another case of injured pride. For some boyish
prank he had been sent to the reformatory for three years. Upon
his release he was given transportation home and started in high
glee. His people met him at the station and took him home.
Although he was treated well he felt uncomfortable. "They
treated me good because I happened to be a part of the family.
I felt like I didn't belong there, so as soon as it got dark I skinned
out. They write to me to come back and maybe I will after a
while." He is an average man of the migratory worker type.

THE HOBO

He comes to Chicago when he has money and when he is " broke"
he goes out on some job and is not seen for two or three months
or until he has another stake. He gets arrested now and then
but only on petty offenses that he commits while drunk.

The following case shows that a sense of failure
and fear of ridicule may force a boy to leave his home
community:

35. This lad was working in a grocery store at the age of
twelve. He became dissatisfied with the job and asked for a raise
which was denied. He was somewhat embarrassed at being set
back and lest he be laughed at for staying on after making a
demand he quit. Someone asked him what he would do since
there was no other job to be had. This was really another
challenge and he met it with the reply that Podunk was not the
only place to work. He left home to make his bluff good.

He met with many reverses. He was small and no one
wanted to hire him. So he begged and he "managed." Some-
times he did odd jobs, but he didn't go home. Other people had
left home and come back beaten and had to take the "horse
laugh" and he did not admire any of them. He couldn't think
of going back unless he had more money than when he left and
better clothes, so he went on. He learned to Hke the road and
he traveled over the country for about two years before he went
back. When he did return he was in a position to talk. He had
some money to spend, he had seen the country. He had been
East and West, and he had been to sea. He had something to
talk about. But he only remained in his home town long enough
to stir up admiration and envy and he was off again. He is still
under twenty-one and is still traveling in response to the same
urge.

Other individuals began their migratory career by
fleeing from the consequences of some offense. If
the offense is of such gravity that the consequences
seem to outweigh the advantages of remaining in
the community, then flight is the natural course.

36. A. states that he left home to avoid the wrath of his
father. He had been to town with the horse and buggy. On the

TYPES OF HOBOS

way home the horse became excited, left the road, ran into a
post, and broke the buggy. His father was absent for the day
and he and his brothers tried to repair the buggy so that the
parent would not suspect. It could not be fixed and they all
knew what the consequences would be. The brothers helped him
pack up and he ran away. He did not return for three years;
then it was only to remain for a short time.

37. Red left home because he feared the consequences of an
affair with a woman. He claims that the woman had relations
with another man and that he was not sure that the child would
be his. The other man was a Mexican and Red says that he has
heard since that the child is a dark-skinned little fellow and that
eases his conscience.

38. O. could not get along with his wife. They were divorced
and he was ordered by the court to pay her thirty dollars a
month. He paid it faithfully for a couple of months and then
failed for a month or two. She had him arrested and he agreed
to make good. As soon as he was released, he fled the country.
He has been living in and about Chicago the past year. It has
been two or three years since he left home. He has not com-
municated with his home because he fears arrest. His alimony
bill has mounted to terrifying proportions. He hopes that his
wife is married again.

RACIAL AND NATIONAL DISCRIMINATION

In certain situations racial or national traits cause
discrimination in employment and so result in a
descent from regular to casual work. So far as selec-
tion for employment is adverse to the Negroes they
tend to recruit the ranks of homeless men. During
the war, a much higher proportion of foreign-born of
German origin was observed on West Madison Street
than had previously been reported. Interviews with
certain Russians on the "main stem" in the spring
of 1922 suggest that the public disapproval of
Bolshevism had reacted unfavorably on the chances
for employment of this nationality in the United
States.

THE HOBO

WANDERLUST

Wanderlust is a longing for new experience. It is
the yearning to see new places, to feel the thrill of
new sensations, to encounter new situations, and to
know the freedom and the exhilaration of being a
stranger.

In its pure form the desire for new experience results in
motion, change, danger, instabihty, social irresponsibility. It is
to be seen in simple form in the prowling and meddling activities
of the child, and the love of adventure and travel in the boy and
man. It ranges in moral quality from the pursuit of game and
the pursuit of pleasure to the pursuit of knowledge and the
pursuit of ideals. It is found equally in the vagabond and the
scientific explorer.^

Even those of us who seem to have settled down quite com-
fortably to exacting routine are sometimes intolerably stirred by
the wanderlust. It comes upon us unaware; and often we cut
away and go. There are automobiles, railway cars, steamships,
airplanes— serving little other purpose, really, than the gratifica-
tion of wander tendencies. Usually we do not say it so openly of
course; we make good reasons for travelling, for not "staying
put." Many a business man has developed a perfect technique
for escaping from his rut; many a laborer has invented a phys-
ical inability to work steadily that lets him out into the drifting
current when monotony sets in on the job. Life is full of these
moral side doors; but we need not view man's rationalizing power
cynically, merely understandingly. The escapes he contrives
are a damaging critique of the modern mode of life. We may
infer from them the superior adjustments we strive so blindly
toward.^

Wanderlust is a wish of the person. Its expres-
sion in the form of tramping, "making" the harvest
field, roughing it, pioneering, is a social pattern of
American life. The fascination of the life of the
road is, in part, disclosed in the following case-study.

1 R. E. Park and H. A. Miller, Old World Traits Transplanted, p. 27.

2 Rexford Tugwell, "The Gypsy Strain," Pacific Review, pp. 177-78.

TYPES OF HOBOS

39. S. who is 19 years old has been a wanderer for nearly four
years. He does not know why he travels except that he gets thrills
out of it. He says that there is nothing that he likes better
than to catch trains out of a town where the police are rather
strict. When he can outwit the ** bulls" he gets a "kick" out
of it. He would rather ride the passenger trains than the
freights because he can "get there" quicker, and then, they are
watched closer. He likes to tell of making "big jumps" on
passenger trains as from the coast to Chicago in five days, or from
Chicago to Kansas City or Omaha in one day. He only works
long enough in one place to get a "grubstake," or enough money
to live on for a few days.

He says that he knows that he would be better off if he would
settle down at some steady job. He has tried it a few times but
the monotony of it made him so restless that he had to leave.
He thinks that he might be able to stay in a city if he had a steady
job and he agreed to take such a job if he could get it. Jobs were
scarce and the investigator promised to take him to the United
Charities to help him get placed.

The following morning the lad came to the office with another
boy with whom he had become acquainted that morning. He
had changed his mind about that job but wanted to thank
everyone who had taken an interest in him. He and his " buddy"
were going to "make the Harvest."

The longing to see the world is often stimulated
in a boy by reason of the experiences of some relative
or friend whom he admires. One boy went on the
road because of the influence his uncle had upon him.
The uncle did not advise him to leave home, in fact,
he did not know very much about the boy. But the
uncle had been to war, and had traveled in China,
Alaska, and South America. The boy had to go on
the road to become disillusioned. He now knows
that his uncle is a plain tramp and that he himself has
become a hobo.

40. W. left home when he was sixteen. He was the oldest
of a family of five boys and three girls. His father owned a farm
in Michigan and was usually hard pressed for means. He

THE HOBO

needed help at home and so W. was kept out of school a great
deal. When he did go to school it was hard for him to learn.
When the father saw that the younger boys were passing W. in
school he decided that it was time wasted to send W. to school.
W. was big for his age and the father imposed more work on him
than on the other boys who were smaller. W. felt that he was
not getting a square deal so he ran away.

He remained away a year before he dared to write. One
reason he did not write sooner was because he was not earning
much money, and the other reason was that he feared his father
would hunt him down and force him to return. When he felt se-
cure he wrote more frequently and most of his letters were boast-
ful. He told of prospering and he moved from place to place
often to show the other children at home that he could go and
come as he pleased. He traveled in different parts of the country
and from each part he would write painting his experiences in a
rosy hue.

He succeeded in stirring up unrest in the hearts of the other
boys who left home one by one. In about two years N. followed
W. L. soon began to feel that he too could make "his way" so
he left. All five of the boys left home before they were sixteen.
Each felt that he was wasting his time about home while the
other boys were seeing the country and making good money.
Only one of the five boys returned home. The others roamed
the country following migratory work. One married but only
lived with his wife a year and then deserted her.

The father always blamed W. for leading the boys away.
W. used to send presents to the other members of the family.
He used to send the mother money now and then. He was the
idol of the rest of the children and they left home to follow in
his footsteps.

A visit to the "jungles" at the junction of any
railroad or at the outskirts of any large city or even
small town reveals the extent to which the tramp is
consciously and enthusiastically imitated. Around
the camp fire watching the coffee pot boil or the
mulligan" cook, the boys are often found mingling
with the tramps and listening in on their stories of
adventure.

TYPES OF HOBOS

To boys the tramp is not a problem, but a human
being, and an interesting one at that. He has no
cares nor burdens to hold him down. All he is con-
cerned with is to live and seek adventure, and in this
he personifies the heroes in the stories the boys have
read. Tramp life is an invitation to a career of
varied experiences and adventures. All this is a
promise and a challenge. A promise that all the
wishes that disturb him shall be fulfilled and a
challenge to leave the work-a-day world that he is
bound to.

THE MULTIPLE EXPLANATION

No single cause can be found to explain how a man
may be reduced to the status of a homeless, migra-
tory, and casual laborer. In any given case all of
the factors analyzed above may have entered into
the process of economic and social degradation.
Indeed, the conjunction of several of these causes is
necessary to explain the extent and the nature of
the casualization and mobility of labor in this,
country. Unemployment and seasonal work disJ^
organize the routine of life of the individual worker
and destroy regular habits of work but at the same
time thousands of boys and men moved by wander-
lust are eager to escape the monotony of stable and\
settled existence. No matter how perfect a social
and economic order may yet be devised there will
always remain certain "misfits," the industrially!
inadequate, the unstable and egocentric, who will [
ever tend to conflict with constituted authority in '
industry, society, and government.

The description, however, of these causes of
vagabondage — (a) unemployment and seasonal work,

THE HOBO

{b) industrial inadequacy, {c) defects of personality,
{d) crises in the life of the person, {e) racial or national
discrimination, (/) wanderlust — is a necessary condi-
tion to any solution of the problem of the homeless
man. A program is remedial and not preventive
that does not grapple with the fundamental causes
here revealed. These causes have roots at the very
core of our American life, in our industrial system,
in education, cultural and vocational, in family rela-
tions, in the problems of racial and immigrant adjust-
ment, and in the opportunity offered or denied by
society for the expression of the wishes of the person.

CHAPTER VI

THE HOBO AND THE TRAMP

THE term "homeless man" was used by Mrs.
Alice W. Solenberger in her study of i,ooo cases
in Chicago to include all types of unattached men,
tramps, hobos, bums, and the other nameless varieties
of the "go-abouts."

Almost all "tramps" are "homeless men" but by no means
are all homeless men tramps. The homeless man may be an
able-bodied workman without a family; he may be a runaway
boy, a consumptive temporarily stranded on his way to a health
resort, an irresponsible, feeble-minded, or insane man, but unless
he is also a professional wanderer he is not a "tramp."^

There is no better term at hand than "homeless
men " by which the men who inhabit Hobohemia may
be characterized. Dr. Ben L. Reitman, who has
himself traveled as a tramp, in the sense in which he
uses the word, has defined the three principal types
of the hobo. He says:

There are three types of the genus vagrant: the hobo, the
tramp, and the bum. The hobo works and wanders, the tramp
dreams and wanders and the bum drinks and wanders.

St. John Tucker, formerly the president of the
"Hobo College" in Chicago, gives the same classi-
fication with a slightly different definition:

A hobo is a migratory worker. A tramp is a migratory non-
worker. A bum is a stationary non-worker. Upon the labor of
the migratory worker all the basic industries depend. He goes
forth from the crowded slavemarkets to hew the forests, build
and repair the railroads, tunnel mountains and build ravines.
His is the labor that harvests the wheat in the fall and cuts the
ice in the winter. All of these are hobos.

^ One Thousand Homeless Men, p. 209.

[87

THE HOBO

M. Kuhn, of St. Louis (and elsewhere), a migrant,
a writer, and, according to his own definition, a hobo,
in a pamphlet entitled "The Hobo Problem" gives
a fairly representative statement of the homeless
man's explanation of his lot.

The hobo is a seasonal, transient, migratory worker of
either sex. Being a seasonal worker he is necessarily idle much
of the time; being transient, he is necessarily homeless. He is
detached from the soil and the fireside. By the nature of his
work and not by his own will, he is precluded from establishing
a home and rearing a family. Sex, poverty, habits and degree
of skill have nothing whatever to do with classifying individuals
as hobos; the character of his work does that.

There are individuals not hobos who pose as such. They are
enabled to do this for two reasons; first, hobos have no organiza-
tion by which they can expose the impostor; second, the frauds
are encouraged and made possible by organized and private
charity. The hobo class, therefore, is unable to rid itself of this
extremely undesirable element. With organization it can and
will be done even if charity, which is strongly opposed by the
hobo class, is not abolished.

Nicholas Klein, president of the "Hobo College"
and attorney and adviser to James Eads How, the
so-called hobo millionaire, who finances the "Hobo
College," says:

A hobo is one who travels in search of work, the migratory
worker who must go about to find employment. Workers of
that sort pick our berries, fruit, hops, and help to harvest the
crops on the western farms. They follow the seasons around
giving their time to farms in spring, summer, and autumn, and
ending up in the ice fields in winter. We could not get in our
crops without them for the hobo is the boy who does the work.
The name originated from the words "hoe-boy" plainly derived
from work on the farm. A tramp is one who travels but does not
work, and a bum is a man who stays in one place and does not
work. Between these grades there is a great gulf of social dis-
tinction. Don't get tramps and hobos mixed. They are quite

A POPULAR RESORT IN HOBOHEMIA

TYPES OF HOBOS

different in many respects. The chief difference being that the
hobo will work and the tramp will not, preferring to live on what
he can pick up at back doors as he makes his way through the
country.^

Roger Payne, A.B. and LL.B., who has taken
upon himself the title "hobo philosopher/' sees only
one type of the wanderer and that is the hobo. The
hobo to him is a migratory worker. If he works but
does not migrate, or if he migrates but does not work,
he is not a hobo. All others are either tramps or
bums. He makes no distinction between them.
The hobo, foot-loose and care-free, leads, Mr. Payne
thinks, the ideal life.

Although we cannot draw lines closely, it seems
clear that there are at least five types of homeless
men: (a) the seasonal worker,^ the transient or
occasional worker or hobo, (c) the tramp who
"dreams and wanders" and works only when it is
convenient, (d) the bum who seldom wanders and
seldom works, and (e) the home guard who lives in
Hobohemia and does not leave town.^

THE SEASONAL WORKER

Seasonal workers are men who have definite
occupations in different seasons. The yearly circuit
of their labors takes them about the country, often
into several different states. These men may work
in the clothing industries during cold weather but
in summer are employed at odd jobs; or they may
have steady work in summer and do odd jobs in

''Dearborn Independent^ March i8, 1922.

* The seasonal worker may be regarded also as the upper-class hobo.

3 The first three types of homeless men are described in this chapter; the
last two types are considered in chapter vii.

THE HOBO

winter. One man picks fruit in summer and works
as a machinist in winter. He does not spend his
summers in the same state nor his winters in the
same city but follows those two occupations through-
out the year.

41. Bill S. is a Scotchman and a seasonal worker. During
the winter he is usually in Chicago. He works as a practical
nurse. He is efficient and well liked by his patients and a
steady worker during the winter. In summer he quits and goes
to the harvest fields or works on a construction job. Since leav-
ing his winter job (March to October, 1922) he has had several
jobs out of Chicago none of which lasted more than a week or
two. Between times he loafs on West Madison Street. He
does not drink. He is well behaved. Seldom dresses up. When
last heard of he was in Kansas City, Missouri, where he thought
he would spend the winter.

42. Jack M. works on the lake boats during the sailing season.
When the boats tie up for the winter he tries to get into the
factories, or he goes to the woods. Sometimes during the tie-up
he takes a notion to travel and goes West or South to while away
the time. He has just returned from a trip East and South
where he has been "seeking work" and "killing time" a week or
so before the season opened. He has already signed up for the
summer. He is loafing and lodging in the meanwhile on West
Madison and South State streets.

/ The seasonal worker has a particular kind of work
that he follows somewhere at least part of the year.
The hotels of Hobohemia are a winter resort for
many of these seasonal workers whose schedule is
relatively fixed and habitudinal. Some of these who
return to the city regularly every winter come with
money. In that case, they do not work until next
season. Others return without money. They have
some kind of work which they follow in the winter.
The hobo, proper, is a transient worker without a
program.

TYPES OF HOBOS

THE HOBO

A hobo is a migratory worker in the strict sense of
the word. He works at whatever is convenient in the
mills, the shops, the mines, the harvests, or any of
the numerous jobs that come his way without regard
for the times or the seasons. The range of his activi-
ties is nation wide and with many hobos it is inter-
national. He may cross a continent between jobs.
He may be able in one year to function in several
industries. He may have a trade or even a profes-
sion. He may even be reduced to begging between
jobs, but his living is primarily gained by work and
that puts him in the hobo class.

43. E. J. is a carpenter. He was at one time a good work-
man but due to drink and dissipation he has lost his ability to do
fine work and has been reduced to the status of a rough carpenter.
At present he follows bridge work and concrete form work.
Sometimes he tries his hand at plain house carpentry but due to
the fact that he moves about so much, he has lost or disposed
of many of his tools. A spree lasts about three weeks and he
has about three or four a year. Sometimes he travels without his
kit and does not work at his trade. He never drinks while work-
ing. It is only when he goes to town to spend his vacations that
he gets drunk. He is restless and uncomfortable and does not
know how to occupy his mind when he is in town and sober.
He is fifty-six years old. He never married and never has had
a home since he was a boy.

44. M. P. is interesting because he has a trade but does not
follow it seasonally. He is a plasterer and he seems to be a good
one. In his youth he learned the trade of stone mason. He
came to this country from England in his twenties and he is past
fifty now. He married in Pennsylvania where his wife died and
where a daughter still lives. He became a wanderer and for
many years did not work at his trade. He did various kinds of
work as the notion came to him. As he is getting older he is
less inclined to wander and he makes fewer excursions into other
lines of work outside his trade. During the past year he has not

THE HOBO

left Chicago and he has done little other than to work as a
plasterer. He lives in the Hobohemian areas and is able to get
along two or three weeks on a few days' work. He seldom works
more than a week at a time. He takes a lively interest in the
hobo movement of the city and has been actively engaged in the
"Hobo College." Recently he won a lot in a raffle. It is located
in the suburbs of the city. During the summer (1922) he had
a camp out there and he and his friends from Madison Street
spent considerable time in his private "jungle."

The hobo group comprises the bulk of the migra-
tory workers, in fact, nearly all migrants in transit
are hobos of one sort or other. Hobos have a romantic
place in our history. From the beginning they have
been numbered among the pioneers. They have
played an important role in reclaiming the desert
and in subduing the trackless forests. They have
contributed more to the open, frank, and adventur-
ous spirit of the Old West than we are always willing
to admit. They are, as it were, belated frontiersmen.
Their presence in the migrant group has been the
chief factor in making the American vagabond class
different from that of any other country.

It is difficult to classify the numerous types of
hobos. The habits, type of work, the routes of
travel, etc., seem to differ with each individual.
Some live more parasitic lives than others. Some
never beg or get drunk, while others never come to
town without getting intoxicated and being robbed
f or arrested, and perhaps beaten. One common char-
acteristic of the hobo, however, is that he works. He
\ usually has horny hands and a worker's mien. He
aims to live by his labor.

As there are different types of homeless men, so
different varieties of this particular brand, the hobo,
may be differentiated. A part of the hobo group

TYPES OF HOBOS

known as "harvest hands" follows the harvest and
other agricultural occupations of seasonal nature.
Another segment of the group works in the lumber
woods and are known as "lumber jacks" or
"timber beasts." A third group is employed in
construction and maintenance work. A "gandy
dancer" is a man who works on the railroad track
tamping ties. If he works on the section he may
be called a "snipe" or a "jerry."

A "skinner" is a man who drives horses or mules.

A "mucker" or a "shovel stiff" is a man who does manual
labor on construction jobs.

A "rust eater" usually works on extra-gangs or track-laying
jobs; handles steel.

A "dino" is a man who works with and handles dynamite.

A "splinter-belly" is a man who does rough carpenter work or
bridge work.

A "cotton glaumer" picks cotton, an "apple knocker" picks
apples and other fruit.

A "beach comber" is a plain sailor, of all men the most
transient.

For every vocation that is open to the migratory
worker there is some such characteristic name. In
the West the hobo usually carries a bundle in which he
has a bed, some extra clothes, and a little food. The
man who carries such a bundle is usually known as a
" bundle stiff" or " bundle bum." The modern hobo
does not carry a bundle because it hinders him when
he wishes to travel fast. It is the old man who went
West "to grow up with the country" who still clings
to his blanket roll.

THE TRAMP

While the word " tramp " is often used as a blanket
term applied to all classes of homeless and potentially
vagrant or transient types, it is here used in a stricter

THE HOBO

sense to designate a smaller group. He is usually
thought of, by those familiar with his natural his-
tory, as an able-bodied individual who has the
romantic passion to see the country and to gain new
experience without work. He is a specialist at
"getting by.'' He is the type that Josiah Flynt
had in mind when he wrote his book. Tramping with
Tramps. He is typically neither a drunkard nor a
bum, but an easy-going individual who lives from
hand to mouth for the mere joy of living.

45. X. began life as a half orphan. Later he was adopted and
taken from Ohio to South Dakota. In his early teens he grew
restive at home and left. But for brief seasons he has been
away ever since and he is now past forty-five. He has traveled
far and wide since but has worked little. He makes his living by
selling joke books and song books. Sometimes he tries his hand
at selling little articles from door to door. A few years ago he
wrote a booklet on an economic subject and sold several thousand
copies. During the winter of 1921-22 he sold the Hobo News
each month. He is able to make a Hving this way. Any extra
money he has he loses at the gambling tables. He spends his
leisure time attempting to write songs or poetry. He knows a
great deal about publishers but it is all information that has come
in his efforts to sell his songs. He claims that he has been work-
ing for several years on a novel. He offered his work for inspec-
tion. He tries to lead the hero through all the places that he
has visited and the hero comes in contact with many of the
things he has seen or experienced in many cities but nowhere does
his hero work. He enjoys life just as X. endeavors to do now.
During the summer (1922) he has taken several "vacations"
in the country for a week or more at the time.

46. C. is twenty-five years old. His home is in New York
but he has not been home for more than ten years. He intro-
duced himself to the "Hobo College" early in the spring of 1922
as "B-2." This name he assumed upon the conviction that he
is the successor of "A-i," the famous tramp. He said that he
had read "A-i's" books and although he did not agree in every
respect, yet he thought that "A-i" was the greatest of tramp

TYPES OF HOBOS

writers. claimed that he had ridden on every railroad in

the United States. His evidence of travel was a book of post-
office stamps. When he comes to a town he goes to the post-
office and requests the postmaster to stamp his book much
as letters are stamped. Another hobby he has is to go to the
leading newspapers and endeavor to sell a write-up. He carries
an accumulation of clippings. He has an assortment of flashy
stories that take well with newspaper men. He claims that he
has been pursued by bloodhounds in the South, that he has been
arrested many times for vagrancy, that he is the only man who
has beat his way on the Pikes Peak Railroad. He always carries
a blanket and many other things that class him among wanderers
as an individualist. He has been in the Army, saw action and
was in the Army of Occupation. He does not seek work. He
says his leisure time can be better spent. He carries a vest
pocket kodak. He says that the pictures and notes he takes will
some day be published.

The distinctions between the seasonal worker,
the hobo, and the tramp, while important, are not
hard and fast. The seasonal worker may descend
into the ranks of the hobos, and a hobo may sink to
the level of the tramp. But the knowledge of this
tendency to pass from one migratory group to
another is significant for any program that attempts
to deal with the homeless man. Significant, also,
but not sufficiently recognized, is the difference
between these migratory types and the stationary
types of homeless men, the "home guard" and the
"bum."

CHAPTER VII

THE HOME GUARD AND THE BUM

THE seasonal worker, the hobo, and the tramp
are migratory types; the home guard and the
bum are relatively stationary. The home guard, like
the hobo, is a casual laborer, but he works, often only
by the day, now at one and again at another of the
multitude of unskilled jobs in the city. The bum,
like the tramp, is unwilling to work and lives by
begging and petty thieving.

THE HOME GUARD

Nearly if not quite one-half of the homeless men
in Hobohemia are stationary casual laborers. These
men, contemptuously termed "home guards" by
the hobo and the tramp, work regularly or irregularly
at unskilled work, day labor, and odd jobs. They
live or at least spend their leisure time on the
"main stem," but seldom come to the attention of
the charities or the police, or ask alms on the street.
Many of them have lived in Chicago for years.
Others after a migratory career as hobos or tramps
"settle down" to a stationary existence. This group
includes remittance men, often the "black sheep" of
families of standing in far-off communities who send
them a small regular allowance to remain away from
home.

47. L. E. was born on the West Side and at present his
family lives in Logan Square. He is twenty-three years old and
has been away from home a year. He claims that after his
mother's death he and his father could not agree. He imme-
diately found his way to West Madison Street where he has lived
since. During the winter (1921-22) he was converted in the
Bible Rescue Mission but later he got drunk and would not

96]

TYPES OF HOBOS

try again. However, he used to visit the mission after that when
he had no bed and was hungry. He is a teamster and works
regularly though he saves no money. He has no decent clothing
and cares for none. He cares only to spend his Sundays and
leisure time on West Madison Street, where he has a few
acquaintances. He usually returns to work Monday morning
after such visits, sick from the moonshine whisky. His health
is not good. Most of his teeth are decayed but he will not save
money to get dental work done. If he has any money to spend
aside from that wanted for booze he goes to the movies and loafs
the time away. He also attends the Haymarket or the Star
and Garter theaters. He left his job two or three times during
the summer. While he was not working he slept in stables. He
doesn't go home nor communicate with his people.

The tendency for the casual worker to sink to
the level of the bum is illustrated by the case of
"Shorty":

48. "Shorty" claims that he has lived in the Hobohemian
areas on South State and West Madison streets for thirty-nine
years. He has never lived anywhere else. He doesn't care to go
anywhere else. He tried married life a while but failed because
of drink and returned to the "street." Drink is still getting him
into trouble. He has dropped down the economic scale from an
occasional worker to the status of a bum. This summer (1922)
he has been arrested several times, and he has served two terms
at the House of Correction. All the arrests were for drunken-
ness and disorder. He is developing into a professional pan-
handler or beggar. During the summer he has had two or three
jobs. Once he was at the stockyards where he claims to have
worked steadily in the early days. Being well known on the
"streets" he is able to get odd jobs now and then that give him
money enough to "get by." He has not been divorced from his
wife. She won't hve with him and he does not care. He has a
child twelve or thirteen years old but he has not seen her for
several years. He does not know where she is. He is not
interested. He spends his leisure time on Madison Street near
Desplaines where he may be found almost every day stand-
ing on the corner or sitting on the curb talking to some
other "bo."

THE HOBO

THE BUM

In every city there are ne'er-do-wells — men who
are wholly or partially dependent and frequently de-
linquent as well. The most hopeless and the most
helpless of all the homeless men is the bum, including
in this type the inveterate drunkard and drug
addicts. Old, helpless, and unemployable, these are
the most pitiable and the most repulsive types of the
down-and-outs. From this class are recruited the
so-called ''mission stiffs*' who are so unpopular
among the Hobohemian population.

49. L. D., forty-five years old, is a typical so-called "mission
bum." He has not been known to work for eight months. During
winter he is always present in some mission. Once he permitted
himself to be led forward and knelt in prayer but was put out of
the same mission later for being drunk. He claims that he was
a prize fighter in his youth. He has traveled a great deal but he
has always been a drinking man. When he is sober he is morose
and quiet. As soon as spring permitted him to sleep out he
ceased to visit the missions.

He has spent most of the summer on the docks along the
river where he sleeps nights and where he has been getting work
now and then unloading the fruit boats that ply between Chicago
and Michigan. During the eight months he has been observed
he has bought no new clothes. Not once during the summer has
he left the city. He says that he has been in town for three years.
The future seems to mean nothing to him. He does not worry
about the coming winter.

50. A. B. is an habitual drunkard. He migrates a great deal
but it seems that his migrations are to escape tedium and monot-
ony rather than to work. He is a little, hollow-chested, under-
sized man and he claims to be thirty-two. He says that his
health has not been good. He has a work history, it seems, but
it is a record of light jobs. He picked berries, washed dishes,
peddled, but he was also a successful beggar. His success in
begging seems to lie in the ability to look pitiful. He has been in
but four or five states of the Middle West but has been in most

TYPES OF HOBOS

of the large cities. He does not patronize the missions because
he says he can do better begging.

OTHER TYPES OF HOMELESS MEN

Many of the terms which are epithets picturesquely
describe special types of homeless men. The popular
names for the various types of tramps and hobos are
current terms that have been picked up on the street
as they pass from mouth to mouth. Some of them
are new, others are old, while all of them are in
flux. Names of types are coined by the men them-
selves. They serve a while and then pass out, giving
place to new and more catchy terms. Change is
characteristic of tramp terminology and tramp
jargon. Words assume a different meaning as they
are extensively used, or they become too general in
their use and newer terms are invented. Many of
the names by which types are designated were at
first terms of derision, but terms seem to lose their
stigma by continued use.^

Among tramps who seldom if ever work are those
who peddle some kind of wares or sell some kind of
service.

The Mushfaker is a man who sells his services. He may be
a tinker, a glazier, an umbrella mender, or he may repair sewing
machines or typewriters. Some mushfakers even pose as piano
tuners. The mushfaker usually follows some occupation which
permits him to sit in the shade while he works. Often the trade
or art he plies is one that he has learned in a penal institution.

The Scissor Bill is a man who carries with him tools to
sharpen saws, knives, razors, etc. Often he pushes a grindstone
along the street.

Beggars among tramps are usually named with reference to
the methods they employ.

^The term "punk" is an instance; it had a special meaning at one time
but is beginning to have a milder and more general use and the term "lamb" is
taking its place.

100

THE HOBO

The following classification is taken from a narra-
tive work by "A No. i, The Famous Tramp," who
claims to have traveled 500,000 miles for $7.61. His
books are more or less sensational and are not popular
among many tramps, because they say the incidents
he relates are overdrawn.^

The Rating of the Tramps by "A No. i"

Pillinger

Solicited alms at stores, offices, and

residences

thoroughfares

Stiffy

Simulated paralysis

Dummy

Pretends to be deaf and dumb

6. Wires

Peddling articles made of stolen

telegraph wires

Mush Faker 1

Umbrella mender who learned

Mush Rigger j

trade in penal institution

Wangy

.... Disguised begging by selling shoe-

strings

10.

plaster

II.

•1

pencils

12.

13-

Peg

. . . .Train rider who lost a foot

14.

Fingy or Fingers , . . .

. . . .Train rider who lost one or more

fingers

15-

Blinky

.... Train rider who lost one or both

eyes

16.

. . . .Train rider who lost one or both

arms

17-

Mitts

. . . .Train rider who lost one or both

hands

18.

Righty

. . . .Train rider who lost right arm

and leg

19.

Lefty

, . Train rider who lost left arm and leg

' Mother Delcassee of the Hobos , pp. 43-44.

TYPES OF HOBOS

101

20. Halfy Train rider who lost both legs

below knee

21. Straight Crip Actually crippled or otherwise

afflicted

22. Phoney Crip Self-mutilated or simulating a

deformity

23. Pokey Stiff Subsisting on handouts solely

24. Phoney Stiff Disposing of fraudulent jewelry

25. Proper Stiff Considered manual toil the acme

of disgrace

26. Gink or Gandy Stiff Occasionally labored, a day or two

at the most

^l' ^}^^^ ^T^-^ c -nrl Confirmed consumers of alcohol

28. White Lme Stiff J

29. Rummy Stiff Deranged intellect by habitual use

of raw rum

10. Bundle Stiff 1 • j u jj-

31. Blanket StifF/ carried beddmg

32. Chronicker Hoboed with cooking utensils

33. Stew Bum

34. Ding Bat

35. Fuzzy Tail

36. Grease Tail

37. Jungly Buzzard

38. Shine or Dingy Colored vagabond

39. Gay Cat Employed as scout by criminal

tramps

40. Dino or Dynamiter Sponged food of fellow hobos

41. Yegg Roving desperado

42. Gun Moll A dangerous woman tramp

43. Hay Bag A female stew bum

44. Jocker Taught minors to beg and crook

45. Road Kid or Preshun. . . .Boy held in bondage by jocker

46. Punk Boy discarded by jocker

47. Gonsil Youth not yet adopted by jocker

The beggar is one who stands in one place. He
supplicates help by appealing to the pity of the
passers-by. The moocher is an individual who is
somewhat more mobile than the beggar. He moves
about, going to the houses and asking for food, cloth-

,The dregs of vagrantdom

102

THE HOBO

ing, and even money, if he can get it. The pan-
handler is a beggar of a more courageous type. He
hails men on the street and asks for money. He does
not fawn nor whine nor strive to arouse pity. Dr.
Reitman says: "The only difference between a
moocher and a panhandler is that the moocher
goes to the back door while the panhandler goes to
the front door.''

The beggar types may also be divided into the
able-bodied and the non-able-bodied. The non-able-
bodied beggars are more numerous in the cities. They
are forced, because of their handicaps, to remain
where the greatest number of people are. Some
handicapped beggars, however, are able to travel
with marvelous speed over the country. These non-
able-bodied types go by different names according
to their afflictions.

Peggy is a one-legged man. Stumpy is a legless man.
Wingy is a man with one or both arms off. Blinky is a man with
one or both eyes defected. A Dummy is a man who is dumb or
deaf and dumb. Some of these types do not beg. They make
a livelihood by peddling or working at odd jobs. A Nut is a
man who is apparently mentally deranged.

The Hop Head is an interesting type. He is
usually in a pitiful condition, for he has small chance,
living as he does, in the tramp class, to get money to
buy "dope." Frequently he resorts to clever and
even desperate means to secure it. One type of
dope fiend is the Junkie. He uses a "gun" or needle
to inject morphine or heroin. A Sniffer is one who
sniffs cocaine. More frequent than the drug habit
is the drink habit.

The tramp class has different types of predatory
individuals and petty or even major offenders:

TYPES OF HOBOS

103

The Gun is a man who might be termed a first-class crook.
He is usually a man who is living in the tramp class to avoid
apprehension. He may be a robber or a burglar.

The Jack Roller is a tramp who robs a fellow-tramp while he
is drunk or asleep. There is a type of "Jack" who operates
among the men going to and from the harvests. He may hold
them up in a box car with a gun or in some dark alley. He is
usually called a Hi-Jack.

Among other types of tramps are:

The Mission Stiff who preys upon the missions. He will
often submit to being converted for his bed and board.

The Grafter is frequently a man who is able to exploit the
private and public charity organizations, or the fraternal
organizations.

The Bad Actor is a man who has become a nuisance to his
people and they pay him money provided he does not show him-
self in his home town.

The Jungle Buzzard is a tramp who lives in the jungles from
what he can beg. He will wash the pots and kettles for the
privilege of eating what is left in them.

From the point of view of abnormal sex relations
there are several types of tramps:

A Punk is a boy who travels about the country with a man
known as a jocker.

A jocker is a man who exploits boys; that is, he either
exploits their sex or he has them steal or beg for him or both.
The term "wolf" is often used synonymously with jocker.

Fairies or Fags are men or boys who exploit sex for profit.

From the economic standpoint, migratory workers
are employables and unemployables. Between the
extremes there are individuals of every shade of
employability. The ability of a man to support
himself is presumed to be related to his ability and
to his opportunity to work. The tramp problem has
been interpreted first of all as an unemployment

104

THE HOBO

problem, but this does not take account of the
unemployables.

First of all, there are the physically handicapped,
the crippled, the blind, the deaf, and the aged, and
many who are too fat or too puny or too sickly to
do heavy manual work. Perhaps a half of the whole
group in a city like Chicago are physically handi-
capped to a greater or less extent.

Second, the psychopathic types include many
irresponsible and undependable persons found in the
population of Hobohemia. These either cannot hold
a job, or do not care to; they have other ideals.
They could, no doubt, do some sort of work but
most of them would have to be supervised.

To what degree homeless men are employable, to
what degree some of them are partially employable,
and to what extent the whole group is unemployable
is a question that cannot be finally answered.'

The problem of the homeless men is variously
interpreted. The courts and the police are interested
in them as offenders. As offenders, they are gener-
ally recidivists; to the social worker and the mission-
ary they represent a body of men who have no
purpose or direction.

One mission worker says:

A few of them can hold their own. They manage to work
most of the time and pay their way, but most of them are " broke"
some of the time and some of them are without money all the
time. They are always making resolutions and never keeping
them. They don't seem to have any stiffening in their backbone.

However we may classify this group, the fact
remains that we have here a great body of persons,

^ The unemployables are a more or less permanent class and do not come
and go with the seasons as do the employables. Able-bodied employables are
an effect of economic depression.

TYPES OF HOBOS

105

probably more than a million in the United States/
and that they furnish a problem that seems to be
ever present. It is, as we shall see later, a great
heterogeneous group, unorganized and incapable of
being organized. They have been gathered from
every walk of life and for a thousiand different reasons
find themselves in this class. There are restless and
normal boys and young men who are out in the world
for adventure and whose stay in the class is more or
less temporary; there are able-bodied men of more
mature age who are either wholly self-supporting or
are self-supporting most of the time; and there are
old men who are too aged and infirm to work and
too proud to surrender themselves to an institution.
There are the physically incapacitated and the men-
tally inadequate who are more or less dependent and
are likely to continue so, and there are many types
of persons who are the victims of lingering diseases
or who are addicted to drink or drugs and are not
able to hold their own. All these are making the
best struggle that their wits, their strength, and their
opportunities permit to get a living. Some of them
are in the group by choice and have their minds
clearly made up to climb out, others hope to get out
and strive to but never will, and yet others never
have any such visions.

RELATIVE NUMBERS OF DIFFERENT TYPES

An estimate has already been made that the
number of homeless men in Chicago range from
30,000 in the summer to 60,000 in the winter, reach-

^ Estimates vary; Lescohier (Commons, Trade Unionism and Labor
Problems, 13,3) gives the number as "more than half a million men," while
Speek {Annals of the American Academy, 1917) refers to estimates that go as
high as five million.

106

THE HOBO

ing 75,000 in periods of unemployment. Any at-
tempt to state the numbers of the different types
of homeless men can be little more than a guess.
The difficulty is the greater because individuals are
continually passing from one group into another
group. One man in his lifetime may perchance have
been, in turn, seasonal laborer, hobo, tramp, home
guard, and bum.

The public generally fails to distinguish between
these types. The group of bums, beggars, and
petty thieves, often mistakenly thought of as repre-
sentative of the homeless men's group, probably does
not exceed in Chicago a total number of 2,500. The
number of the home-guard type, the stationary
casual worker, has been placed at 30,000, the sum-
mer population of Hobohemia on the basis of the
number of permanent guests at lodging-house and
hotel, and the number of registered voters among
the homeless men.^ The number of tramps who visit
Chicago each year can only be roughly estimated at
1 50,000,^ or an average of perhaps 5,000 at any given
time. The migratory worker, including both the
seasonal laborer and the hobo, number on the aver-
age around 10,000 and reach a total of 300,000 or
more persons who come to Chicago for the winter
or to secure a shipment to work outside the city.
In periods of economic depression the numbers of
homeless men in Hobohemia are swollen with men
out of work, the majority of whom for the first time
have been turned adrift on the "main stem."

' See p. 14 n.

'These numbers indicate the number of visits rather than the number of
separate individuals since a certain proportion of men visit Chicago two or
more times during the year.

CHAPTER VIII

WORK

THE occupations that select out of the foot-loose
males in our population the most restless types

are:

1. Agriculture or crop moving. — ^When the crops
are ready to be garnered labor must be imported at
any cost. The leading crops in these seasonal de-
mands are grain harvesting, corn shucking, fruit pick-
ing, potato digging, beet topping, cotton picking,
hop picking, etc. If a man follows the wheat harvest,
he may be occupied from the middle of June when the
crop is ready in Oklahoma until November or Decem-
ber when the season ends with threshing in North
Dakota and Canada. Workers who pick fruit may
remain in one locality and have some kind of fruit
always coming on.

2. Building and construction work, — Next to crop
moving the building trades and construction jobs
make the heaviest seasonal demands upon the labor
market. Railroad construction, ditch digging, and
similar occupations are generally discontinued during
the winter. Carpentry, masonry, brick and con-
crete work are only carried on with reduced numbers
of men through the cold months.

3. Fishing. — Salmon fishing on the Pacific Coast
and oyster fishing on the Atlantic Coast are also
seasonal industries. In the fishing industry, as in
other seasonal occupations, there is a demand for
experienced workers that cannot always be had when
most needed.

4. Sheep shearing. — Sheep shearing is a skilled
trade. Thousands of men are needed to harvest the

[107

108

THE HOBO

wool crop each year and these men are forced to
become migratory. The shearing season, Hke the
harvest, moves from border to border during a period
of three or four months. In the Southwest the sheep
are sometimes cHpped twice a year. The shearing
jobs are usually short but lucrative.

5. Ice harvesting. — Formerly the ice harvest fur-
nished employment to an army of men for two
months or more during the winter. Ice-manufactur-
ing plants have diminished the demand for natural
ice, though ice cutting still furnishes winter jobs for
many men.

6. Lumbering, — Working in the lumber woods and
in the saw mills is not now so much of a seasonal job
as it was when the industry centered around the
Great Lakes. The industry has gone West or over
the border into Canada, where, with the longer
winter season and improved facilities, it operates
almost all year. It is not necessary in Washington,
Oregon, and California to wait for the snow to begin
work in the woods as in Michigan and Wisconsin in
the early days.

Certain occupations not essentially seasonal have
a tendency to contribute to migrancy. In many
metal mines a man's health will not permit him to
work long. He leaves and goes into some other
mine in the same or a different district where the
danger is not present. A miner tends to become a
migrant for the sake of his health. There are other
industries in which hazards exist that force workers
to become transient.

The American hobo has been a great pioneer.
New mining camps, oil booms, the building of a
town in a few weeks, or any mushroom development

TYPES OF HOBOS

109

utilizes a great many transient workers. After a
flood, a fire, or an earthquake, there is a great
demand for labor. The migratory worker is always
ready to respond. It is his life, in which he finds
variety and experience and, last but not least, some-
thing to talk about.

JOB HUNTING AMONG THE CASUAL WORKERS

In seasonal and casual work, as in all types of
industry, a process of selection takes place. Great
numbers of men are attracted into seasonal occupa-
tions because of the good wages offered. But only
those remain who are content to migrate from one
locality to another in response to the demands for
labor. The average man soon realizes that in the
course of a year seasonal work does not pay even if
fabulous wages are received for short-lived jobs.
The man who continues as a migratory worker is
likely, therefore, to be a person who is either unable
to find or unable to hold a permanent job. Some
workers become restless after a few weeks or months
in one place. Seasonal and casual work seems to
have selected out these restless types and made hobos
of them.

Migratory workers have a certain body of tradi-
tions; they know how to get work; what kind of
work to look for; when to look for certain kinds of
work, and where certain work may be found. They
fall in with the seasonal migration of workers and
drift into certain localities to do certain jobs; to the
potato fields, the fruit picking, the wheat harvest.

The hobo worker finds his way to out-of-town
jobs more often than to city work. Upon leaving an
out-of-town job he is likely to return to the city in

110

THE HOBO

order to locate another job out of the city or even out
of the state. This tendency of the foot-loose worker
to drift into the city has turned the attention of the
employer to the city whenever he needed help. Both
the worker and the employer have been attracted to
the city in an effort to solve their labor difficulties.
Intermediate agencies spring up to bring together the
jobless man and the man with jobs to offer. Employ-
ment agents, congregating in the Hobohemian sec-
tions of the city, convert those areas into labor
markets.

Chicago is probably the greatest labor exchange
^ for the migratory worker in the United States, if
not in the world. Probably no other city furnishes
more men for railroad work. In days past, when so
many new railroads were being built, there were
great demands for men in the West, and it was not
uncommon to get a 1,000-mile shipment any time
in the year. One is still able to secure free ship-
ments of from 400 to 600 miles.

There are more than 200 private employment agen-
cies in Chicago. There were, on August 14, 1922, 39
1 licensed private agencies of the type patronized by
I the homeless man. Eighteen of these were on Canal
^ Street, thirteen were on West Madison Street, and
the rest in close proximity to that area. In addition
to these there are many agencies not operating on a
commission basis which hire men for a private cor-
poration and are maintained by that corporation.
As such they are not licensed nor does the law affect
them.

No figures are at hand to show how many men
these private agencies place during the year. Their
records are not merely inadequate; they are a joke.

TYPES OF HOBOS

111

In fact, few of them keep records that list all appli-
cants, all men placed, jobs registered, etc., though the
state law definitely declares that this must be done.

The inclusion of the non-fee-collecting agencies
will raise the number from 39 to over 50. If each
agency sends out, at a low estimate, 10 men a day,
and if each operates 300 days a year, a total of 150,000
men are placed in jobs annually. Over 57,000 men
in 1921-22 were placed by the free employment
agency. Many of these homeless men have access to
other private agencies than those situated on the
"stem/* and often they prefer to go to such agencies.
If 100 of these agencies furnished jobs to 2 homeless
men a day for 300 days a year, we would have an
additional 60,000. About 250,000 homeless men
pass through the Chicago employment agencies
every year.

Employment agencies fall into two classes — the
public, or those operated by the federal govern-
ment, the state, or the municipality and those
conducted under private management. The private
agency is the pioneer. It was not only the outgrowth
of a certain condition in the labor market but it was
the reason for the creation of the public employment
bureau.

PRIVATE EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES

The idea is becoming general that employment
offices have a social responsibility. They have duties
to the applicants, to the employers, and to the public
that are more than economic; more than a business of
seUing jobs to jobless men. It is a responsibility
that is not imposed upon the ordinary business man
and that has no prominent place in the code of busi-
ness ethics.

112

THE HOBO

The private employment agencies that cater to
the homeless men are chiefly located on the West
Side. The 1919-20 Report of the Illinois Department
of Labor^ shows that during that period there were
295 licensed private employment agencies in Chicago.
As we noted above, about fifty of these serve the
homeless men. Most of these fifty agencies are
located along Canal Street opposite the Union
Depot, or along Madison Street between the Chicago
River and Halsted Street. Some of these operate
the year round, while others come and go with the
seasons, opening up in prosperous times and going
out of existence when the demand for labor falls.

A few of the private agencies are fairly well
equipped; that is, they have desks, counters, tele-
phone, chairs or benches, and a waiting-room which
in cold weather is kept warm for the patrons.
Others, the majority, have very little equipment,
perhaps a chair and a table in a single, bare room.
They keep no books other than what they carry in
their pockets. For the average small labor agent an
office is only used as a place to hang the license. He
gets his patrons by standing on the street and solicit-
ing. The other private agents are playing the role
of man catcher, and he must do the same if he would
succeed.

There are two types of private labor agencies —
the commission agencies, and the boarding or com-
missary agencies. The commission agency is the
pioneer job-selling institution which survives by
charging a fee to the employer who seeks workers, or
by charging a fee to the applicants, or by charging
both. Usually they charge both the applicant and

^p. 51.

TYPES OF HOBOS

113

the employer, and formerly their prices were gov-
erned by the demand for jobs, on the one hand, and
for workers, on the other. (If the competition is for
workers they can raise the price charged the
employer. If jobs are scarce they can raise the
price charged the applicant.) The boarding and
commissary agency charge no fee for the job. Their
profit is made in keeping the boarding-house for the
men they hire.

In the past it was proverbial that better shipments
could be had from the private agencies in Chicago
than from any other city. A few years ago the
Chicago agencies were shipping men to all the big
jobs within a radius of from 500 to 1,000 miles, and
men would come to Chicago from 500 to 1,000 miles
in one direction to be sent by the agencies to work on
some job equally as far in another direction. These
long-distance interstate shipments have been the
chief factor in the prosperity of the private agencies.
High prices were charged for the long shipments but
the men were willing to pay them whether the job
was good or not in order to secure free transporta-
tion west or south or east. The long shipments are
not so numerous at present and the high fees are no
longer permitted.

The charge sometimes made that the private agencies are
gruff and discourteous would seem well founded if one failed to
consider the behavior of homeless men on the street. These
men would not pass the same judgment. They are used to
speaking roughly to each other. They take and give hard
blows in their dealings with the "labor shark." Many men can
get along much better with the blunt and unceremonious private
agent than with the sleek, precise, courteous, and business-like
officials in the public agencies. Their preference for the private
agent is not for his gruffness or the ease with which they may

114

THE HOBO

approach him. It is mainly because he serves them better.
They hate him for his fees but he gets the jobs they want.

The migratory worker resents the idea of being
obliged to pay for the privilege of securing work. In
every program that the hobo has advocated to change
society he has made reference to the "labor shark."
The hobo worker is never disappointed to find that
the job has been misrepresented by the agency. Nor
is the agency surprised if the applicant does not go
to work when he arrives on the job.

PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES

The state has been forced into the employment
business because of the problems presented by private
agencies. The public employment agency in Chi-
cago has not displaced or even seriously affected the
private employment agency. It is still only in the
experimental stage, a laboratory in which the employ-
ment problem may be studied.

There are three public free employment offices in
Chicago: one at ii6 North Dearborn for skilled
workers, one at 105 South Jefferson Street for un-
skilled workers, and one at 344 East Thirty-fifth
Street, chiefly for Negro workers. The homeless
man is chiefly interested in the Federal and State
Labor Exchange located at 105 South Jefferson Street.
However, the central office on Dearborn Street, which
specializes in skilled and permanent employment, at-
tracts two or three hundred homeless men a day,
mainly from South State Street. This office is care-
ful not to send out on jobs "dead line men.'*

By "dead line men" are meant men who live on Madison
west of Canal Street. Men "living" on Clark, State, and
Dearborn streets are more reliable and stand a better chance

TYPES OF HOBOS

115

than the "dead line men" to get jobs. The firms that place
their demand for help with the Dearborn Street bureau generally
want references, showing place of residence and name of former
employer. Such firms will not consider a West Madison Street
man. The clerks sometimes advise an applicant to change his
address to that of some relative in case the applicant makes a
favorable impression with the clerk. If a man looks and speaks
intelligently but is too ragged and dirty to send out on a job, the
suggestion is sometimes made to clean up and spruce up a bit.
The transformation in some cases is astonishing.^

Probably four or five times as many men are
placed by the private as by the public employment
agencies. It seems paradoxical that the migratory
worker should patronize the private labor agent
whom he regards as an exploiter and a parasite rather
than the free employment office, yet there are good
reasons for his behavior.

In the first place, the office of the public agency,
although little more than a block away, is not on the
"main stem." Strangers in the city find their way
to the "slave market" without difficulty but may
never become aware of the existence of the free
employment office. A migratory worker likes to do
a little "window shopping" before he takes a job.
He likes to go along the streets reading the red or
blue or yellow placards announcing jobs and ship-
ments until he has made up his mind. The signs and
scribbled windows of the private agency are maneu-
vers of salesmanship. The public agency has no
such signs on the outside. The men must go inside
to see the blackboard upon which the jobs are written.

Further, the public agency is in duty bound, as
the private agency is not, to keep records and to get
certain information from the workers who apply for

* Koster, unpublished manuscript, pp. 17-18.

116

THE HOBO

jobs, and from the employers as well. The men who
patronize these agencies dishke the "red tape" of the
public agency; they are often unwilHng to be cata-
logued and given a number, or go through the other
formalities so necessary for efficiency. The decisive
reason why the migratory worker patronizes the
private agency is because it carries a better class of
jobs. Jobs involving interstate shipments are usu-
ally given to the private agencies, partly because it
is customary, and partly because they know how to
solicit such contracts for labor. It is difficult for a
man to get an out-of-state job in the public agency
since it is more or less local in its jurisdiction. The
private agencies attract the hobos also because they
make no effort to see that he goes to work after he
has been sent. Indeed, it is to their advantage if he
does not go to work, for then they have the chance
to send another man. The public agency makes an
effort to "follow up" the applicants and to "keep
tab" on them. The hobo worker shies from such
solicitous treatment.

Mr. J. J. Kenna, chief inspector of private employ-
ment agencies, believes that the private agencies
should be obliged to do likewise. He wrote in his
report to the State Department of Labor in 1920:

Another question that might be given consideration is the
subject of public information pertaining to the business of private
employment agencies for the instruction . of those interested in
labor problems and legislation, namely:

A law compelling the agencies to furnish the State Department
of Labor with a monthly report of the number of all applicants
applying for positions, their ages, etc., and also the number of per-
sons brought into the State and sent out of the State and to where
sent, the kind of employment for which they were engaged, etc.^

^ Third Annual Report of the Department of Labor (1920), p. 50.

TYPES OF HOBOS

117

Nothing would do more for efficiency in the
employment office business than to compel the
private agencies to keep as efficient records as the
public bureau. The spirit of competition so prev-
alent in the private agencies is not present in the
public labor bureau. The public agency stands
complacently on the side, never entering the struggle
to get jobs and men together. It is too much of an
office and too little of an agency.

The public and private agencies operate upon
diametrically opposing assumptions. The assump-
tion of the public agency is that the man once
placed will remain so long as the job lasts, and a
large proportion of their jobs, especially in the Dear-
born Street office, are for "long stake" men. A
man's record, his qualifications, are taken and he
is sent out to the job with the notion that he will
work steady. The private agencies, on the con-
trary, assume that few of these men will remain
long on the job; that they may stay ten days or two
weeks and seldom longer than three months. The
public agency with an eye to permanency may be
expected to move slowly in placing men on jobs,
whereas the private agency will send anyone to any
job that he says he can do and that he is willing to
pay for.

THE CASUALIZATION OF LABOR

The casualization of labor, in spite of its concern
to place men permanently, has a tendency to attract
"home guards," i.e., men who do not care to leave
the city and yet do not want steady work. They
may work from a day to a week, then they return
for another job.

118

THE HOBO

The following are a few of the names taken at
random from a list of men who had been given ten or
more jobs by the Federal and State Labor Exchange
between March i, 1922, and August 15, 1922 (five
and one-half months) :

Number

JO OS

i>735

Too V^f^ff\T

' 1 ^ c\Y\ \T V{

Jas. Griffin

c 811

F. Mullen

5*069

Ed. Moorhead

635

Fred Wagoner

5.334

Jas. Purl

682

F. A. Murlin

5>390

W. Galvin

628

A. Myers

3.700

W. Slavis

. 2,202

P. Myshowi

2,408

C. Carroll

4, 1742

Jas. Lewis

.... 3,872

The records show hundreds of similar instances.
Some men have been sent to as many as forty or
fifty jobs during a period of six months and few
stayed with a job more than a month or two.

John M. secured 26 jobs from the Free Employment Bureau
in less than three months between May 4 and July 26. The
following is the list of employers with the dates of employment:^

1. Morris and Co May 4

2. Ravina Nursery May 6

3. Edison Co May 10

4. Ed Katzinger May 18

5. New Era Coal Co May 24

6. Ravina Nursery May 26

I E. H. Koster, unpublished notes, pp.

TYPES OF HOBOS

119

7. Home Fuel Co May 27

8. Morris and Co May 31

9. 111. Bell Telephone Co June 8

10. Flazman Iron Co June 12

11. Greenpoint Beef Co June 13

12. Astrid Rosing Co June 14

13. Armstrong Paint Co June 21

14. Const. Mattress Co June 22

15. Armour Co June 26

16. Oxweld Acetylene Co June 27

17. Oxweld Acetylene Co June 29

18. Wisconsin Lime Co June 30

19. American Express Co July i

20. Wisconsin Lime Co. July 5

21. Oxweld Acetylene Co July 10

22. Oxweld Acetylene Co July 11

23. Edison Co July 15

24. Low Pipe Co July 24

25. International Har. Co July 25

26. J. A. Ross July 26

John M. is a casual laborer. He is one of a type
that works by the day, is paid by the day, and lives
by the day. Don. D. Lescohier has described the
characteristics of the casual workers:

A man becomes a casual when he acquires the casual state of
mind. The extreme type of casual never seeks more than a
day's work. He lives strictly to the rule, one day at a time.
If you ask him why he does not take a steady job, he will tell
you that he would like to, but that he hasn't money enough to
enable him to Hve until pay-day, and no one will give him credit.
If you offer to advance his board until pay-day, he will accept
your offer and accept the job you offer him, but he will not show
up on the job, or else will quit at the end of the first day. He has
acquired a standard or scale of work and life that makes it
almost impossible for him to restore himself to steady employ-
ment. He lacks the desire, the will-power, self-control, ambition,
and habits of industry which are essential to it.^

I Lescohier, The Labor Market y p. 264.

120

THE HOBO

The demoralizing effect of a period of unemploy-
ment upon the migratory and casual worker is indi-
cated in an interview given to the investigator by
Mr. Charles J. Boyd, general superintendent of the
Illinois Free Employment Offices in Chicago.

Depending on one's point of view, the homeless man, owing
to the serious industrial depression during the winter of 1921-
1922 had remarkable success in begging or panhandling. The
spirit of the public during the depression was to help the unem-
ployed man and advantage of this situation was not lost sight
of by the hobo who worked on the sympathy of the public.
With the approach of summer and improved industrial condi-
tions, the hobo continued to make a living in other ways than
by working for it. There seems to be an understanding among
this class of men not to work for less than 50c an hour, and
they are loath to accept steady employment at 35c to 37§c hour
when they can do temporary work, and work at a different job
every day, or any day one pleases, at 45c to 50c an hour. The
hobo is reluctant to work in foundries or steel mills. He likes
the open and when winter is past, the hobo, with few exceptions,
refuses inside work.

The hobos of today are made up of young men, ranging in
ages from 18 to 35 years. They form in groups of six or seven,
camp in the "brush" and send a different one of their group out
each day to panhandle in the town or village near which they
may be camping. Then too, these men have very decided
views on the Volstead law, before the enactment of which the
hobo felt he had some inducement to work, for he liked his
beer, if it was only i| per cent, and he did not know it. But
since prohibition, his attitude seems to be "Why should I work
any more than I really have to.^" or in other words, more than
to get enough for food and a place to sleep.^

The hobo is not unfamiliar with strike jobs.
Corporations, when forced to the wall in a labor
crisis, often come to the "stem" for their strike-
breakers. By offering alluring wages and the assur-

^ From the unpublished notes of an interview by E. H. Koster.

TYPES OF HOBOS

121

ance of security, they are able to attract from ranks
of even the casual workers enough men to keep the
plants running. Labor agencies of this kind are
not popular on the ''stem'*; neither are the men
who hire out as strike-breakers. But in spite of this
stigma they survive as during the railroad strike
in the summer of 1922. These railroad agencies
crowded even to the heart of the Madison Street
mart and eventually forced the private agencies to
deal in strike jobs.

Strike-breakers or "scabs" are of four varieties:
(i) men who are innocently attracted to the job
(it is generally charged that this was the case in the
Herrin affair); (2) men who are "too proud to beg
and too honest to steal*'; (3) men who have a grudge
against some striking union, or against organized
labor in general; and (4) men who hire out as
bona fide workers but really "bore from within"
and in the language of the radical "work sabotage."

A NATIONAL PROBLEM

All the problems of the homeless man go back in
one way or another to the conditions of his work.
The irregularity of his employment is reflected in the
irregularity of all phases of his existence. To deal
with him even as an individual, society must deal
also with the economic forces which have formed his
behavior, with the seasonal and cyclical fluctuations
in industry. This means that the problem of the
homeless man is not local but national.

The establishment during the war of the United
States Employment Service gave promise of an
attempt to cope with the problem nationally. The
curtailment of this service since 191 9 through inade-

122

THE HOBO

quate appropriations has prevented its functioning on
a scale which the situation demands.

The emphasis upon the development ot a national
program means no lack of recognition of the service
of local employment agencies. They are indispen-
sable units in any effective plan of nation-wide
organization. The bureaus and branches, in Chi-
cago, of the Illinois Free Employment offices are
now co-operating with the United States Employ-
ment Service.

A CLEARING HOUSE FOR HOMELESS MEN

The accumulated experience of the local employ-
ment agencies will be valuable not only in the future
expansion of the national employment service, but
in pointing the way to the next steps to be taken
locally in dealing with the homeless man as a worker.
The officials of these agencies have learned that the
problem of adjusting the migratory casual worker in
industry involves human nature as well as economics.
A conviction is growing that in connection with,
or in addition to, the public employment agency
designed to bring together the man and the job,
there is need of a clearing house which offers medical,
psychological, and sociological diagnosis as a basis for
vocational guidance, after-care service, and industrial
rehabilitation.

PART III

THE HOBO PROBLEM

CHAPTER IX

HEALTH

O EXTENDED study has ever been made ^
that would afford an adequate index for the \

physical fitness of homeless men. Municipal lodging-
houses, jails, hospitals, and other institutions have
collected certain data. But such information is
indicative of the physical and mental condition of
those only who have become problems of charity or
correction. They do not represent the whole group
of homeless men. However, it is evident from these
studies that a large proportion ot the entire group is
below par physically. They indicate at least that
defective individuals are comparatively numerous
among hobos and tramps.

THE PHYSICALLY DEFECTIVE

Mrs. Alice W. Solenberger found that two-thirds
of her i,ooo cases were either physically or mentally
defective. Of these, 627 men and boys were suffer-
ing from a total of 722 physical and mental defi-

ciencies.^

Condition Instances

Insanity 52

Feeble-mindedness 19

Epilepsy 18

Paralysis 40

Other nervous disorders 21

Tuberculosis 93

Rheumatism 37

Venereal diseases 21

Other infectious diseases 15

Heart disease 14

Disorders of organs other than heart 19

* Alice W. Solenberger, One Thousand Homeless Men, p. 36.

[125

126 THE HOBO

Condition Instances

Crippled, maimed, or deformed; from birth or

accident i68

Rupture 1 1

Cancer 6

Blind, including partly blind 43

Deaf, including partly deaf 14

Defective health through use of drugs and drink. ... 16
Defective health from lack of nourishment and other

causes 24

Convalescent 33

Aged 35

All other diseases and defects 7

Doubtful 16

Total instances 722

Total number of different men in defective
health or condition 627

She tells us that of the 222 more or less permanently
handicapped, 106 men had been entirely self-
supporting before their injuries while 127 were
entirely dependent after injury.

A careful study of 100 homeless men made in the
Municipal Lodging House of New York City by
F. C. Laubach showed the following defects:^

Tubercular 7 Maimed 14

Venereal 26 Malnutrition 13

Bronchial 4 Poor sight 9

Feeble 14 Poor hearing i

Senile 16 Impediment of speech 2

Deformed 4 Physically sound 28

Laubach's 100 cases were selected from more than
400 men. They represented the 100 who remained
longest to be examined (perhaps the 100 the least able
to get away). He found 28 per cent able-bodied

I F. C. Laubach, Why There Are Vagrants, p. n

THE HOBO PROBLEM 127

while Mrs. Solenberger reported 37.3 per cent with-
out observable defects. That this per cent of
defectives is high for more unselected groups will be
shown by the following extract from the report of
the Municipal Lodging House of New York City for
1915.

.... Fifteen hundred men were studied by a staff of fifteen
investigators. At the same time a medical examination of two
thousand men was conducted by fifteen medical examiners.
This investigation represented the first large attempt in America
to find out about the men who take refuge in a municipal lodging
house

Of the 2,000 men who were given a medical examination,
1,774, approximately 9 out of every 10, were, according to the
adjudgments of the examining physicians, physically able to
work. Twelve hundred and forty-seven, or 62 per cent of the
total, were considered physically able to do regular hard manual
labor; 254, or 18 per cent, to do medium hard work; and 173,
or 9 per cent, to do light work only. Two hundred and twenty-
six, I out of every 10, were adjudged physically unable to
work.^

This investigation showed that in a lean year,
when many men were out of work, a large proportion
of the lodging-house population is composed of handi-
capped men. The physical condition of 400 tramps
interviewed by the writer is not so much in contra-
diction as in supplement to the foregoing studies.^
Only men in transit were tabulated. Nearly all of
them were the typical migratory workers or hobos.
Observation was limited to apparent defects that

^ Report of the Advisory Social Service Committee of the Municipal Lodging
House, pp. 9-n. New York City: September, 191 5.

^This unpublished study of 400 tramps was made while riding freight
trains from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Chicago in the summer of 1921. All the
cases tabulated were cases in transit. A large part of them were men who
regularly beat their way about the country. Document 115.

128

THE HOBO

would hinder in a noticeable manner the working
capacity of the men.

Senile 6 Tuberculosis i

Maimed 8 Feeble-minded 7

Eye lost or partly blind 5 Chronic poor health. . . 4

Eye trouble 5 Impediment of speech 2

Venereal disease i Temporarily injured. . . 4

Partly paralyzed 2 Oversized or undersized 4

These 50 defects were distributed among 48 persons

Subtracting those who could be classed mentally
defective, we have but forty-one persons who were
apparently physically handicapped. It will be noted
that the percentage of the aged is considerably lower
than the previous tables show. The same is true of
the maimed and injured. They were all men who
were able to "get over the road." One of the
maimed men had lost an arm while the two others
had each lost a foot.

Eye trouble was listed separately because these
were ailments that were passing. Three ot the men
had weak eyes and this condition had been aggra-
vated by train riding and loss of sleep. One man
had been gassed in the army and his eyes suffered
from the wind and bright light. Only one man
admitted that he was suffering from a venereal
disease.

Both men suffering from tuberculosis were miners.
Both had been in hospitals for treatment. One of
them was in a precarious condition. The men
listed as oversized and undersized might be properly
considered physically handicapped. Two of them
were uncomfortably fat while the other two were
conspicuously under weight and height.

THE HOBO PROBLEM

129

THE hobo's health ON THE JOB

Often the seasonal work sought by the migratory
worker is located in out-of-the-way places or with
little or no medical or sanitary supervision. Some-
times there are not even tents for the men to sleep
in. Life and work in the open, so conducive to
health on bright, warm days, involves exposure in
cold and stormy weather. In the northwest, where
rain is so abundant that workers suffer considerably
from exposure, strikes have even been called to
enforce demands tor warm, dry bunkhouses.

In addition to the exposure to the elements there
are other hazards the migratory and casual workers
run. On most of his jobs, whether in the woods, the
swamps, in the sawmills, or the mines and quarries,
in the harvest, on bridges or on the highways, the
hobo faces danger. Since he is in the habit of work-
ing only a few days at the time, a well-paying,
hazardous job appeals to him. The not infrequent
accidents are serious since few of these foot-loose
men carry insurance.

Seasonal labor generally consists of hard work like
shoveling or lifting and carrying heavy loads. * Only
men who can do hard work are wanted. Not much
so-called "light work" aside from a few jobs in
kitchens, in stables, or about camps is open to the
transient. Many homeless men are not physically
able to do eight or ten hours' hard labor without
suffering. They are often weak from eating poor
food or from dissipation. Even if they go on a job
with their minds made up to remain one or two
months they are often obliged to leave after a few
days. Often the hobo works on jobs where there is
no medical attention. Sometimes, where the job

130

THE HOBO

includes large numbers of men, a physician is hired
to go from camp to camp. He is usually known as
a "pill peddler" and all he pretends to do is give
first aid to the injured and treat passing ailments.
Serious cases he sends to the hospital.

Big industrial organizations usually carry some
sort of medical insurance and in some cases accident
insurance. This system of workingmen's compensa-
tion for industrial accidents is maintained sometimes
by fees taken from the pay of the men, sometimes
entirely by the employer. The accident compensa-
tion, the hospital, and medical privileges apply only
to ailments and injuries caused by his work.

The food the hobo receives on the job is not
always palatable, nor does it always come up to the
requirements of a balanced diet or the caloric needs
of a workingman. In the business of feeding the
men, considerable exploitation enters which the men
are powerless to prevent. The boarding contracts
are often let to boarding companies that agree to
feed the men and furnish bunks for prices ranging
(since the war) from five to eight dollars a week.
For the privilege of boarding the workers, they agree
to keep the gangs filled. Often in the West the men
furnish their own beds, but private "bundle beds"
are passing. Some companies furnish good beds, but
the general rule is to supply a tick that may be filled
with straw and a couple of quilts which are charged
to the worker until he returns them. These quilts
and blankets are often used again and again by
diflFerent men without being cleaned during a whole
season.

Several boarding companies maintain free employ-
ment agencies in Chicago, well known to the hobo

THE HOBO PROBLEM

131

and generally disliked. The chief complaint against
them is that in hard times, when men are plentiful,
there is a tendency to drop on the quality and the
quantity of the food. In such an event the monot-
ony of the menu and the unsavory manner in which
food is prepared is a scandal in Hoboland. However,
all complaints against boarding companies are not
due to bad food. Poor cooking is another ground for
much dissatisfaction. Efficient camp cooks are rare
and too high priced for the average boarding company.

THE HEALTH OF THE MAN ON THE " STEM "

The hazards the homeless man takes while at
work in the city are far less than on the seasonal
out-of-town work. The health problem of the
transient "on the stem" is nevertheless serious. It
is not so much a problem of work conditions as of
hotels and lodging accommodations and restaurants.

The cheap lodging-houses and hotels in Chicago
are under the surveillance of the Chicago Depart-
ment of Health. The department has done much
to keep down contagion and to raise the standards of
these places. Infectious diseases have been more
rare here than in hotels in the Loop. These hotels
survived the influenza epidemics as well as any in the
city. There has been a gradual rise in the standards
of health and sanitation of the hotels and lodging-
houses, but just how much this is due to the watchful
care of the Department of Health cannot be said.
Other factors, such as business competition, may also
have entered in to improve conditions.

In many respects the cheap workingmen's hotels
still fall far below the standards set by law. Indeed,
if all of them lived up to the letter of the law in every

132

THE HOBO

respect, many would find it unprofitable to operate.
These hotels are in buildings that were erected for
other purposes, buildings that cannot be adequately
made over to accommodate comfortably hundreds
of men.

The problem of ventilation is present in the older
hotels for men. In some corners, in hallways and
isolated rooms, there is never any circulation of air.
The smells accumulate from day to day so that the
guest on entering a room is greeted by a variety of
odors to which each of his predecessors has con-
tributed.

The following statement of an investigator indi-
cates what is one of the most objectionable features
of the cheap hotel.

The lack of adequate toilet facilities is deplorable. In one
hotel I found two toilets for one hundred and eighty men and
in another seven for three hundred and eighty. Some of the
toilets have absolutely no outside ventilation, opening on sleeping
rooms. Some of them are located in halls with no partition
separating them from sleeping rooms and are a source of foul and
nauseating odors.^

With respect to wash basins and bath facilities the
condition is no better. Many do not even have hot
water. In some places from twenty to forty men use
the same wash bowl.

The Department of Health has taken an active
part in the campaign against vermin, and co-operates
whenever a complaint is made. Their task seems
hopeless since the patrons are so transient and so
frequently carry vermin from one place to another.
The very buildings are often breeding places for
bedbugs, lice, and roaches.

1 George S. Sobel, Report to Committee^ summer, 1922.

THE HOBO PROBLEM

133

SICKNESS AND DISEASE

If the homeless man becomes sick or injured while
at work he likely will be cared for by the hospital
maintained by the industry. But he is in dire dis-
tress when he has no job and is in need of medical
attention. Occasionally men without funds go to
private physicians and not infrequently they get free
treatment, but the traditional and easier method of
meeting such situations is to go to an institution.
Chicago, with its numerous hospitals and medical
colleges, is a Mecca for the sick and the afflicted of the
''floating fraternity." Homeless men come some-
times several hundred miles for treatment to this
great healing center of trampdom. They have no
scruples against entering an institution as a charity
patient. To them it is not chanty, but something
due to the sick.

VENEREAL DISEASE

Venereal disease and ailments growing out of
venereal disease play a considerable role among the
tramp population. The Chicago Health Depart-
ment on the basis of the medical examination of
inmates of the House of Correction estimates that
lo per cent of the homeless men are venereally
infected.^ This is double the rate of infection found
in drafted men.^

The transient does not take venereal disease
seriously. He takes no precautions to protect him-
self after exposure. Necessity forces him out on
some job where he must work, sometimes even in an

^ Letter from Chicago Health Department to Committee on Homeless

Men.

' U.S. Surgeon General's Office, Dejects Found in Drafted Men.

134

THE HOBO

active stage of infection. Often he tries to treat
himself with remedies recommended by druggists or
friends. Once the transient submits to treatment in
a hospital or by a physician he will seldom continue
it after the active stage of his case has been passed.

Along the "stem," sex perversion is not infre-
quent and occasionally from such contacts infections
occur. Embarrassing as it is for the homeless man
to apply to a hospital or clinic for treatment for
social disease, it is doubly so when thus infected.
That such cases are not numerous is true, but they
do exist, and they provide an answer to the pervert
who holds that homosexuality is safe from disease.^

ALCOHOLISM AND HEALTH

Practically all homeless men drink when liquor
is a.vailable. The only sober moments for many
hobos and tramps are when they are without funds.^
The majority, however, are periodic drinkers who
have sober periods of a week, a month or two, or

^Unpublished Document 87 is a statement from Dr. Ben L. Reitman,
based upon cases in his practice of veneral infection caused by homosexual
relations.

2 It is of interest to note the findings of the study of 2,000 men in connec-
tion with the Municipal Lodging House of New York City, 1914:

"Of 1,482 men who made statements regarding their habits, 1,292 —
approximately 9 out of every 10 — said they drank alcoholic liquors. Six hun-
dred and fifty-seven or 44 per cent said that they drank excessively; 635, or
43 per cent, said that they drank moderately; and 190, or 13 per cent, claimed
to be total abstainers.

"Of the 2,000 who were given a medical examination, 775, or 39 per cent,
were diagnosed as suffering from alcoholism. According to Dr. James Alexander
Miller, these 'figures probably do not represent by any means the number of
individuals who were alcoholic .... but rather indicate only the number
who manifested acute evidence at the time of investigation.'" — From the
Report of the Advisory Social Service Committee oj the Municipal Lodging House,
pp. 9-22. New York: September, 191 5.

Here we have in a few words a cross-section of the drinking population
among the homeless men in New York where conditions are not materially
different and where the population is essentially the same as in Hobohemia.

THE HOBO PROBLEM

135

even a year. These are the men who often work all
summer with the avowed purpose of going to some
lodging-house and living quietly during the winter,
but usually they find themselves in the midst of a
drunken debauch before they have been in town more
than a day or two. Rarely does one meet a man
among migratory workers who does not indulge in
an occasional " spree " ; the teetotalers are few indeed.

The homeless man on a spree usually drinks as
long as his money lasts, and then he usually employs
all the devices at his command to get money to
prolong the debauch. For the time being he will
disregard all other wants. After he sobers up and
finds himself sick, weak, and nervous, his plight is a
sad one. He has no appetite for the only food he is
able to buy and the food he craves he cannot afford.
He is too weak and shaky to work, and too disheart-
ened to beg. In summer he can go to the parks or
the docks and sleep it off. Getting drunk in winter
means more or less exposure for these men, and their
sobering up not infrequently takes place in the hospi-
tal — or in jail. In view of these after-effects, drink-
ing is more serious for the homeless man than for
any other.

Chronic or periodic drunkenness with its accom-
panying exposure leaves a stamp on the constitution
of the homeless man that is not easily erased. It
aggravates any latent weaknesses that he may have,
and if he does not go to the hospital after a debauch
with lung trouble, nervous diseases, heart trouble, or
rheumatism, he is at least lowering his resistance to
these and other diseases. The man who survives best
spends long periods on the job and only occasionally
visits the city.

136

THE HOBO

When the amount of exposure, the extent of dis-
sipation, and the malnutrition that falls to the lot
of the homeless man are taken into consideration, it
is remarkable that he is as free from sickness as he
is. The fact that he is outdoors much of the time
may have something to do with this.

THE PROBLEM OF HEALTH

Disease, physical disability, and insanitary living
conditions seem to be, as things are, the natural and
inevitable consequences of the migratory risk-taking
and irregular life of the homeless man. These
effects of his work and life upon his physical constitu-
tion will be considered by many the most appalling
of all the problems affecting the hobo and the tramp.
Municipal provision and philanthropic effort have
been and will continue to be directed to the treat-
ment of his diseases and defects and to the improve-
ment of his living conditions. The efficiency of the
homeless man as a worker and his chance of regain-
ing his lost economic and social status depend upon
his physical rehabilitation. A clearing house for
the homeless man when established should, therefore,
include as one of its activities facilities for diagnosis
of the needs, medical, vocational, social, of each
individual.

The living conditions of the homeless man,
although revolting to the public, are intolerable to
him, chiefly as a symbol of his degradation.
Lodging-house sanitation and personal hygiene are
of minor import, in his thinking, as compared with
working conditions, or, for that matter, with the
problems of his social and poHtical status, to be
discussed in the next two chapters.

CHAPTER X

SEX LIFE OF THE HOMELESS MAN

TRAMPING is a man's game. Few women are
ever found on the road. The inconveniences
and hazards of tramping prevent it. Women do
wander from city to city but convention forbids them
to ride the roads and move about as men do. One
tramp who had traveled 8,000 miles in six months
said: "I even saw two women on the road, and last
summer I saw a woman beating her way in a box
car."

Tramping is a man's game. Few pre-adolescent
boys are tramps. They do not break away perma-
nently until later in their teens. How does the
absence of women and children affect the life of the
migratory worker ^ What difference would it make
if tramps traveled like gypsies, taking their women
and children with them ^ How does the absence of
women and children affect the fantasy and the
reveries and eventually the behavior of the homeless
man ?

The majority of homeless men are unmarried.
Those who are married are separated, at least tem-
porarily, from their families.^ Most homeless men in
the city are older than the average man on the road
and would be expected, therefore, to have had
marital experience. They are content to live in town
while the younger men are eager to move in the rest-
less search for adventure and new experience.

* Of the 1,000 men studied by Mrs. Solenberger, 74 per cent gave their
marital status as single. Of the 400 interviewed by the writer 86 per cent stated
that they were unmarried. Only 8 per cent of the former and 5 per cent of the
latter survey claimed they were married. The others claimed to be widowed,
divorced, or separated from their wives. Unpublished Document 142.

[137

138

THE HOBO

THE TRAMP AND HIS ASSOCIATIONS
WITH WOMEN

The homeless man has not always been homeless.
Like most of us, he was reared in a home and is so
far a product of home life. He enters upon the life
of the road in his late teens or early twenties. He
brings with him, as a rule, the habits and memories
gained in the more stable existence in the family and
community. Frequently it has been his conflict
with, and rebellion against, that more stable exist-
ence that set him on the road.

Most of these men have mothers living. If their
mothers are dead, they speak of them reverently.
The mission workers often direct their appeals to
these early memories, "the religion of our mothers."
The only correspondence that some homeless men
carry on is with their mothers. Some of them only
write one or two letters a year but these are letters
home. In most of the missions there is a sign with
the inscription, "When Did You Write to Mother
Last ?"

Other women may, and sometimes do, exert a
wholesome influence upon him. He is often pro-
foundly touched by the women of the missions who
stand on the street corner and plead with him for his
soul's sake. Young and attractive women invite
more attention because of their sex than their
message. Though he may have little or no interest
in the religious appeal, feeling for these women is
generally idealized and wholesome. The missions
have learned the value of young and attractive
women and employ them extensively as evangelists.

Women in places where the hobo has worked or
boarded, generally older women, frequently take a

THE HOBO PROBLEM

139

mother's interest in him. "Mother" Greenstein,
who keeps a restaurant on South State Street^ is the
idol of a great many "bos." She never turns a
hungry man away. She is known far and near by
tramps and hobos. Many men know her by reputa-
tion who have never seen her.

Another woman who has become well known to
many homeless men is "Aunt" Nina S. She kept a
rooming-house for years and always gave any man
who came to her in winter some place to sleep. She
could always find room. Her only compensation was
the good will of the homeless man.

51. Another woman who has won a place in the hearts of
men of West Madison Street is an old lady whom the "bos"
call "Mother." She does not give them anything; on the con-
trary she begs from them but she takes a motherly interest in all
the "boys." She is against anyone who makes life hard for
them and hates the bootleggers, the gypsies, the gamblers, and
all who exploit them. She will denounce and curse anyone who
dares to call them "bums" in her presence. Her hobby is cats.
She spends several hours a day going up and down the street
feeding cats. All the "boys" are tolerant of all cats on the street
because they belong to "Mother." He is a poor "bo," indeed,
who will not spare "Mother" a dime now and then for milk
for her " kitties."

When the tramp works he usually goes out on
some job where there are no women. He may spend
six months in a lumber camp and not see a woman
during all that time. He may work for a whole
summer, along with hundreds like himself, and never
meet a woman. Sometimes there are women on
such jobs, but they are generally the wives of the
bosses and have no interest in the common workers.
Children in such families frequently strike up a more
intimate acquaintance with them. The only com-

140

THE HOBO

pany for such a man is men, and men who are living
the same unnatural life as himself.

There are jobs open to the homeless man that are
more wholesome. Sometimes he finds himself in
communities where he is neither isolated nor an out-
cast. The tramp is not often interested in small-
town or country associations, because they generally
tend to terminate seriously and he does not want to
be taken seriously. If he has the money to spend,
and he usually has while he is working, he can meet
women, but he meets them in town when he has
leisure. He may have a hundred reasons for going
to town, but the major reason, whether he admits it
or not, is to meet women. The types of women he
meets depends upon his personality, his taste, and
his purse. In this he is hke the soldier or the sailor.

The younger hobos, especially those who are on
the road and off again by turns, are able at times to
save money and put on a "front." These younger
men are frequently able, therefore, to get into the
social life of the communities in which they find
themselves. When they are in town with money
to spend they *'go the limit" while it lasts, and then
they go out to work and save up another "stake."
Usually they have a number of women on their
correspondence lists. As they go from one city to
another they make new acquaintances and forget
the old friends. Usually they are as transient in
their attachments to women as to their jobs.

Many of these younger men ultimately settle
down, but they do not always have the ability to
make permanent attachments though they may try
again and again. They invariably seek greener
pastures. Wherever they are, they will be found

THEiHOBO ^PROBLEM

141

burning the candles at both ends/' As long as they
are young and attractive they have little difficulty
in finding girls who are willing to assist them in
scattering their cash.

Among these are the show girls who sing or dance
in the cheap burlesque theaters on South State and
West Madison streets. Thousands of hobos, who
never can hope to come in personal contact with
chorus girls, throng the cheap playhouses of Hobo-
hemia. The titillations of a State Street vaudeville
are vulgar and inexpensive. The men, many of
them, at least, would not and could not appreciate
a higher grade of entertainment.

The hobo has few ideal associations with women.
Since most of them are unmarried, or living apart
from their wives, their sex relations are naturally
illicit. The tramp is not a marrying man, though he
does enter into transient free unions with women
when the occasion offers. There are many women
in the larger cities who have no scruples against
living with a man during the winter, or for even a
year or two, without insisting upon the marriage rite.
They are not prostitutes, not even "kept women."

52. M. lived with Mrs. S. N. for four or five years, off and
on, whenever he was in town. What little money he earned he
brought home, though he took money from Mrs. N. more fre-
quently. She worked and usually when she came home very
tired he would have the house work done and a meal ready.
When she was sick he waited on her. He Hstened to her troubles
and was patient and good natured. In winter he always got up
and made the fires. She was always jealous of him and when he
would leave town for a month or two she fancied that it was to
get away from her and to live with some other woman. Finally
they separated, but they are still good friends. He is living with
another woman and she with another man. Of late he is only
in Chicago in winter.

142

THE HOBO

The tramp who succeeds in hving in idleness
with a woman in such a companionship considers
himself fortunate. The woman who can find a man
like M. is often content, provided he is faithful to
her, although she prefers a man who can be depended
upon to earn a little money. The women who enter
these free unions have the least to gain and the most
to lose. The general experience of women who keep
their "men" is that when they are in the direst need
the men will desert them; on the other hand, when
the men are in need they will return.

A certain class of detached men makes a practice
of getting into the good graces of some prostitute for
the winter. The panderer is not a characteristic
tramp type, but certain homeless men are not averse
to becoming pimps for a season. These attachments
between homeless men and prostitutes are often quite
real. Some of them even become permanent, others
last a year or two, but most of them are only of a
few months' duration. While they do persist they
are often more or less sentimental.

THE HOBO AND PROSTITUTION

Most hobos and tramps because of drink, un-
presentable appearance, or unattractive personal-
ity, do not succeed in establishing permanent, or
even quasi-permanent, relationships with women.
For them the only accessible women are prostitutes
and the prostitutes who solicit the patronage of the
homeless man are usually forlorn and bedraggled
creatures who have not been able to hold out in the
fierce competition in higher circles.

These women, otherwise so isolated and so hard
pressed by their exigent wants, do not live on the

THE HOBO PROBLEM

143

"main stem," but adjacent to it. They are conven-
iently located so that even the "floater/' who comes
to town with a few months' savings, has no trouble
in finding them. The upper-class prostitutes keep
men on the street getting the business for them.
Pandering is an art, and many of these pimps have
become adepts in catching the men who come to
town with "rolls." Only a small part of the com-
merce of the homeless man is with the "live ones."
He usually has so little money that he is forced to
bargain for the attention of the lowest women that
walk the streets.

Men with "rolls" are scarce in Hobohemia. One
man met on West Madison Street said: "I came in
last night with $380 and now I'm flatter'n a pancake.
I didn't even get a pair of sox. Hallelujah! I'm a
bum." He was still too drunk to realize the situa-
tion, but next day he was uncertain whether he had
been robbed by a woman or by a "jack roller." He
did not even know whether he had been robbed or had
lost his money. He had worked all winter and spring
on a ranch near Casper, Wyoming, and had come to
town with a trainload of cattle."" It is seldom that
the second-rate prostitute gets hold of so much money.

From these "second raters" the tramp is doubly
liable to infection. Most of them have been diseased
at some time while some of them are infected all the
time. More than one-third of them, according tov
Dr. Ben L. Reitman, of the Chicago Health Depart-l
ment, are constantly spreading infection. The
homeless man is well aware of the risk he runs
when he patronizes the prostitute, but he does not
realize the gravity of the danger.

* Unpublished Document 114.

144

THE HOBO

PERVERSION AMONG THE TRAMPS

All Studies indicate that homosexual practices
among homeless men are widespread. They are
especially prevalent among men on the road among
whom there is a tendency to idealize and justify the
practice. Homosexuality is not more common
among tramps than among other one-sex groups.
In the prison and jail population, the authorities
are forced to wage a constant warfare against it.
The same condition prevails also in the navy or
merchant marine, and, to a lesser extent, in the army.^

Among tramps there are, it seems, two types of
perverts. There are those who are subjects, in the
words of Havelock Ellis, "of a congenital predisposi-
tion, or complexus of abnormalities." Ellis contends
that certain individuals, different temperamentally
and physically from the rest of us, are not attracted
by the opposite sex but are easily attracted by their
own sex. Most of them are men who have developed
from childhood feminine traits and tastes, and they
may be regarded as predisposed to homosexuality.
The second group is composed of individuals who
have temporarily substituted homosexual for hetero-
sexual behavior. Most of these perverts by conver-
sion are men who, under the pressure of sex isolation,
have substituted boy for woman as the object of their
desires. This is chiefly because boys are accessible
while women are not.

THE BOY TRAMP AND PERVERSION

The boy does not need to remain long in hobo
society to learn of homosexual practices. The
average boy on the road is invariably approached

* Iwan Bloch, Sexual Life of Our Times ^ p. 540.

THE HOBO PROBLEM

145

by men who get into his good graces. Some
''homos" claim that every boy is a potential homo-
sexual. This is without doubt an exaggeration as
well as a defense, for not all boys are subject to
persuasion. Sometimes boys will travel alone or with
other boys to avoid the approaches of older men.
Often boys will refrain from traveling with adults,
even well-behaved adults, because they realize that
they will be under suspicion. It is not uncommon
to hear a boy who is seen traveling with an older man
spoken of as the "wife" or "woman." It is only
natural that many boys fear to be alone with adult
tramps.

53. The case of M. is typical. He is a sixteen year old boy
who travels alone. He is a handsome lad; small for his age and
neat in appearance. He is just the type of boy that would
attract the average "wolf" who idealizes pink cheeks and an
innocent appearance. He travels alone because of his fear of
"wolves." He had not been away from home three weeks and
he says that he has been accosted several times. Although he
had been in Chicago but a day he had received advances from
two men who tried to persuade him to go to a room.

Many devices are employed by them to place the
lad in their debt or under their protection. If
methods of persuasion do not work, force is some-
times used. One man gave a brakeman a dollar to put
a boy off the train at a lonely siding. Another man
learned which direction a certain boy was traveling
and followed him from town to town, "accidentally"
meeting him at each place. The lad was without
funds, and so was the man, but the latter was able to
beg and usually had a "lump" when he met the boy
and he always divided. Another man led a boy a
mile or so out in the country to a place where he

146

THE HOBO

claimed he had worked during the previous year and
where he knew they could both get something to eat.

Another common ruse is to take a boy to a room
or a box car to sleep. The man suggests that he
knows a clean car in a safe place with plenty of straw
or paper on the floor. In a big city the boy is often
enticed to a room for the same purpose. There are
many cases on record in the Chicago courts.^

54. A. F., a boy sixteen years old, was being held in a room
on West Ohio Street to which he had been enticed for immoral
purposes by John Mc J. M. was arrested on complaint of one F.
He was found in company with another boy in a room in the
E. Hotel on South State Street. John was held for trial on
13,000 bonds which he could not furnish. He died in jail waiting
for trial.

55. C. J. This man worked on a boat plying between Michi-
gan ports and Chicago. He persuaded a Michigan boy whose
home was near Lansing but who had run away and was loafing
about the docks on the lake front, to come with him to Chicago.
He promised to help the boy get a job, etc. He took him to a
room on South State Street where he held him for three days
and had improper relations with him. Prior to his apprehension
he had turned the boy over to another man for the same purpose.

[ Josiah Flynt, who was familiar with tramp life,
j seems to be of the opinion that most boys are forced
into the practice. However, it does not seem prob-
able that force is so extensively employed as is some-
times believed. These accounts serve as a defense
reaction on their part, yet we cannot say that
such forced initiations do not occur. But even
those who at the outset were the victims of "strong
arm" methods often become reconciled to the
practice and continue it. Often they become pro-
miscuous in their relations and many of them even
commercialize themselves.

^ Unpublished Document 32.

THE HOBO PROBLEM

147

Writers on the sex behavior of men and boys often
refer to the relationship as it exists among tramps as
a sort of slavery. By slavery is meant that boys are
held in bondage to men and forced to steal and beg
for them. This condition may exist in isolated
instances but it is not general. It is even suggested
by some authorities that there exists some sort of
organization among tramps through which boys
have been " caught " and kept in servitude. The best
evidence that such an organization does not exist is
the fact that perverted sex practices are frowned upon
by the tramps themselves.

The court records show, however, that not infre-
quently boys are held in rooms, or taken to lonely
buildings, or out on the lake front, or in the parks,
but the case that gets into court is seldom one in
which both parties were free agents. If there is
slavery in these latter cases it is slavery to their pas-
sions, or to a state of mind growing out of their habits
and their isolation.

The duration of an intimacy of this kind in the
city is seldom more than a few days. On the road,
however, the "partnership" may last for weeks.
Whereas, out of town the pair can travel as compan-
ions aiding each other, in the city they can get along
better alone. It is difficult for partners to remain
together long in the city, especially if one has money
and the other none, or if one drinks and the other
does not. Living in a metropolis is a problem the
tramp can solve better alone.

ATTITUDES OF THE PERVERT

Tramp perverts argue that homosexual inter-
course is "clean'* and that homosexuals are less liable

148

THE HOBO

to become infected with venereal disease. The Vice
Commission of Chicago, in its report for 191 1, states
that homosexual individuals "are not known in their
true character to any extent by the physicians
because of the fact that their habits do not, as a rule,
produce bodily disease/'^

It is also urged by perverts that in the homosexual
relation there is the absence of the eternal complica-
tions in which one becomes involved with women.
They want to avoid intimacies that complicate the
free life to which they are by temperament and habit
committed. Homosexual attachments are generally
short lived, but they are real while they last. Some-
times a man will assume a priority over a boy and
will even fight to maintain it. The investigator dur-
ing his study of this phase of the tramp problem
made two unsuccessful attempts to step between
men and their boys, or "lambs." In one case his
interference was resented by both the man and the
boy, but in the other it was rather enjoyed by the
boy, though he would not be separated from his
"wolf."

The investigator met S., a veteran "wolf" on
Madison Street. When he was asked why his face
was so badly bruised he said that he and another man
had fought over a boy. "He was trying to get my
kid into a room with him." He claimed that he hit
the man and ran but that he was arrested. He was
held over night in the Desplaines Street Station on
a charge of disorderly conduct, but was discharged
the next morning. What hurt him most was not
the night in jail or his bruised face but the fact that
the other man had left town with the boy.

' The Social Evil in Chicago, pp. 296-97.

THE HOBO PROBLEM

149

In his sex life, as in his whole existence, the home-
less man moves in a vicious circle. Industrially
inadequate, his migratory habits render him the
more economically inefficient. A social outcast, he
still wants the companionship which his mode of
life denies him. Debarred from family life, he
hungers for intimate associations and affection. The
women that he knows, with few exceptions, are
repulsive to him. Attractive women live in social
worlds infinitely remote from his. With him the
fundamental wishes of the person for response and
status have been denied expression. The preva-
lence of sexual perversion among the homeless men ^ v
is, therefore, but the extreme expression of their un-
natural sex life. Homosexual practices arise almost
inevitably in similar situations of sex isolation. A
constructive solution for the problems of the sex life
of the homeless man strikes deeper into our social
life than this study can carry us.

CHAPTER XI

THE HOBO AS A CITIZEN

WHERE are we to place the hobo as a citizen ?
What is his actual status as a member of
society or as a functioning unit in the state ? Where
does he stand in relation to organized society and its
laws and its mores.

The public dismisses these questions by assign-
ing the hobo and the tramp to the class of "undesir-
ables/' This reaction of the public is, of course,
emotional and superficial, based partly on the shabby
and unkempt appearance of the men of the road and
partly on their reputation as beggars, vagrants,
drunkards, and petty thieves. Any study of the
homeless man as a citizen must go farther and take
into account such factors as nativity, naturaliza-
tion, and patriotism; legal residence and the right
and opportunity to vote; obedience to law; and his
political aspirations.

NATIVITY, NATURALIZATION, AND PATRIOTISM

Students of hobos and tramps have been struck
by the fact that the great majority of homeless
men are native-born Americans. Mrs. Solenberger
found that of i,ooo, 623 were native born. Of the
400 tramps interviewed by the writer during the
summer of 1921, only 61 were foreign born and 23
of these had taken out naturalization papers. From
these and other studies it appears that from 60 to
90 per cent of hobos and tramps are native born.

The tramp is an American product. The foreign-
born in this group are chiefly of the older immigra-
tion. Among these. Englishmen, proverbial as

150]

THE HOBO PROBLEM

151

"globe-trotters," are conspicuous. The number of
homeless men from the newer immigration is small,
and the individuals who are found in the tramp and
hobo group seem often out of place.

One test of patriotism is military service. The
writer found that of the 400 he interviewed, 92 had
seen military service. This figure is high, since there
were only 183 men of the whole group between the
ages of twenty and thirty-four. These men were
listed in 1921 and would include many who were not
in the draft age when the allotments were drawn in
1 91 8. There were of the 400, 58 who were probably
under the draft age in 191 8. When we consider the
proportion of physically and mentally unfit, it seems
that this figure is high.'

THE HOBO AND HIS VOTE

What is the status of the hobo as a voter ? He
seldom remains in one place long enough to acquire
legal residence. His work, because of its seasonal
character, often takes him away from his legal resi-
dence just at the time when he should be there to
register or vote. Whether he has a desire to cast his
ballot or not, he is seldom able to do so.

A canvass of thirty-five Hobohemian hotels in
Chicago has shown that about a third of the guests
are voters. In March, 1923, there were 3,029
registered voters from these hotels, which have a
total capacity of 9,480. Many of these, though they
are in the city only in winter or for a few weeks at

' It must be remembered that the 400 include tramps In transit who are,
perhaps, the better and most fit of all the types. At least there would be in
such a group a greater number of able-bodied men than in any 400 selected at
random in the "stem" of one of our cities. Again, 400 is not a sufficient number
to permit more than a tentative conclusion.

152

THE HOBO

a time, manage to maintain a residence here and,
if they are in the city during an election, they vote.

Charges are even made that tramps and hobos
sell their votes, that they often engage in "repeat-
ing." There is not as much ground for such charges
as one would expect. The average tramp does not
have the courage to take the chances that the
"repeater" must expect to run. He realizes also
that he is always under more or less suspicion even
when he is going straight, and this serves as a brake.

Homeless men as a group make much of the fact
that they are excluded from the ballot, and they re-
mind all who have the patience to listen that the exclu-
sion is unjust because they perform an important and
legitimate function in the labor world. They seem
to protest against their exclusion more than to de-
mand the ballot. One man said that he did not know
if he would vote if he had a chance, "but it's the
principle of the thing."

The International Brotherhood Welfare Associa-
tion has repeatedly stood for some form of universal
suffrage that would permit migratory workers to
vote, regardless of the length of their residence in a
community.

During the latter part of May, 1922, a convention of the
Farmer-Labor Party was held in Chicago. Certain members
of the hobo group failed in the attempt to get a resolution
through the convention in favor of giving the vote to migratory
workers. Certain delegates feared that the hobo was too irre-
sponsible to use the ballot. The farmer element in the Farmer-
Labor Party resented the idea of giving support to the tramp
group by whom they had been harassed so much in the harvest
fields. Nor is the I.W.W. particularly interested in "votes for
the hobos," because in their opinion the ballot is at best an indi-
rect method of accompHshing what can be easier secured by direct
action.

THE HOBO PROBLEM

153

Forty-eight of the 400 homeless men studied by
the writer claimed to have voted in the presidential
election of 1920.

56. One of the men interviewed in this study said: "I hap-
pened to drop into Salt Lake the last day of the registration so I
got my name on the dotted line. I swore I had been in the state
a year. They couldn't prove I wasn't, so it passed. I'd been
in ten or fifteen states that year. Well, when election came I was
working in Bingham. My boss was short of help and didn't
want me to lay off to vote, so I quit and went to Salt Lake. Got
there just before the polls closed."

One man said that he beat his way 1,000 miles to
cast his ballot. Most of the 48, however, had voted
because at election time they were living in or near
their legal residence. What was the attitude of the
352 who did not vote ? The following are the reasons
given (with reference to 1920 election):^

No desire to vote and no legal residence 28

Having legal residence but no desire to vote 54

No legal residence but desire to vote 129

Under twenty-one 88

Aliens 38*

In military service 9

Disfranchised 2

Not known 4

Total 352

* Sixty-one foreign-born in 400; 23 naturalized.

There were 28 men both ineligible to vote and
indifferent to the ballot. The group of 54 who had no
desire to vote included men who were at home, or
near their legal residence, and could have voted had
they been interested. The two listed as disfran-

* From an unpublished study by the author of 400 tramps, Document 115.

154

THE HOBO

chised were both men who had been dishonorably
discharged from the navy. Both were under twenty-
one and had enhsted under the pressure of wartime
enthusiasm. One of these was not interested in vot-
ing and the other said that the vote was a joke
anyway.

THE HOMELESS MAN AND THE LAW

The migratory worker is not saddled with respon-
sibility for law and order. As he makes his way
about the country, he is unincumbered. He has
nothing to lose and nothing to protect but his per-
son, and that he protects best by constantly moving.
The homeless man has no interest in common with
the settled man of the community who has attach-
ments and property, and at whose expense he often
lives. The migratory worker, for a time, may be
physically a part of a community, but he actually
does not become absorbed into its social life. The
wanderer who fails to win a place in the life of a
community often takes his own course. This
course is sometimes in harmony with the interests
of the community, but more often counter to them,
and he fails under the surveillance of the law.

To the tramp and the hobo the police are the
guardian angels of organized society, created to
protect the community against criminals and
migrants. To him there are two varieties of
police — civil and private. The uniformed upholder
of the law, the civil police, is given the uncomplimen-
tary epithet, "harness bull." The plain-clothes men
are called "dicks," "fly cops," and "stool pigeons."
The private police who protect the property of the
railroad are held in even lower contempt.

THE HOBO PROBLEM

155

THE PRIVATE POLICE

The chief job of the "dicks" is to keep the "bos"
off the trains. The private poHce are unpopular,
not only among homeless men, but also among the
employees of the railroads. Brakemen and switch-
men will often aid tramps in their effort to avoid the
police. Railroad police must often contend with a
lack of co-operation by the civil police. The town
police, or "town clown" as he is called, may order
the tramps to leave on the "next train," while the
railroad police may be making every effort to prevent
their riding the trains. The town police are not
anxious to fill the jail; they prefer that the transients
move on; they reason that the railroad should take
away what the railroad brought.

The railroad policeman shows results, not by the
number of convictions as the civil police, but by his
ability to keep at a minimum the number of offenses
against railroad property. His endeavor is to put
fear into the hearts of all trespassers on the right-of-
way. He becomes a hunter of men, not to seize and
detain them, but to pursue and terrorize them. He
is to the railroad property what the scarecrow is to
the cornfield.

Railroad police sometimes drive men off fast-
moving trains by throwing stones or shooting at
them. Not infrequently they catch and maltreat a
tramp; however, they are seldom able to get hold of
a veteran tramp. The inexperienced man or the
boy is more likely to be caught. These means of
putting fear into men do not stop tramping. As they
become fearful of the railroad "bull," they become
more cautious, and the "bull's" problem is increas-
ingly difficult.

156

THE HOBO

WHAT THE TRAMP THINKS OF THE
PRIVATE POLICE

To migrants the railroad is "the tramp's tradi-
tional highway." The tramp, however, expects
opposition from the railroad police and even from
the train crews; nevertheless he measures his success
as a "boomer" by his ability to outwit this opposi-
tion. Encounters with the railroad police are a
favorite theme of conversation in the "jungles" and
along the "stem."

One man tells of being held in Hutchinson,
Kansas, on suspicion:

57. A bunch of us came in on a freight and started up town.
It was about midnight and the moon was shining. We were
sneaking along the shade of a row of box cars. A couple of men
halted us and ordered us to come out into the light. I had a
notion to run but one of the other fellows said they had "gats"
and we'd better take no chances. It was a good thing we didn't
run because we found out that a couple of men had escaped
from the jail. All the police and a lot of the citizens had been
drafted to find them. Most of them carried guns and nothing
would have suited them better than to have had some one to
shoot at.

They rounded up about ten "bos" out of the yards and took
us to a room in the depot where they held us for about an hour
till one of the guards came from the jail. He did not see the
escaped men in the crowd so we were turned loose. The rail-
road "bull" ordered us to walk out of town. We walked out a
ways and then sneaked back and caught a freight.

I think we got off easy. I had a buddy once who was held a
week until the police could get a picture. He was caught by
the railroad "bull" and turned over to the "town clown."
They are always sorry if they can't get someting on a "bo"
they hold.

Youths in their first adventures on the road accept
with zest the conflict with the private police. A

THE HOBO PROBLEM

157

student who made a practice of "working the
harvest" each summer gives the following statement:

58. My first experience with a bull was at Marshalltown,
Iowa. I had been selling books up near Mason City, Iowa, and
after three weeks of that loathsome occupation, I threw my
prospectus into the ditch and started for home. Late one night
I caught an express train on the Northwestern from Ames, Iowa,
bound for Chicago, and rode from there to Marshalltown;
unfortunately the train pulled into the station very slowly and
the long string of lights on the station platform shed a great deal
of light on the train. I started to get off when a rough voice
cursing loudly told me to get off on that side. He took me by the
shoulder and asked me what in hell I was doing riding on that
train. "Don't you know," he said, "what we do with fellows
who ride the front ends of these trains ?" He gave me a kick and
told me to get out of the yards. It was my first encounter with
the "bulls" and I have since learned that "bull" tactics are very
much the same.

Another time I crawled off the train into the waiting arms of
a Rock Island "bull" in Council Bluffs, Iowa. He showed me
his star and searched me over carefully, feeling every lump in my
clothing. During the search he said, "Will you give me all I find
on you ?" The question rather startled me but I quickly
replied, "Yes." Finding nothing, he seemed disappointed and
said, "I can't understand why you haven't more money on you!
What are you, anyway ?" I told him I was a college student
looking for work. "The hell you are!" he sneered, "you're a
Weary Willie, now get out of here, quick."

At Grand Island some fifty of us tried to ride a merchandise
freight out of the yards, when an energetic "bull" pulled him-
self out of a car and waved a revolver wildly warning all not to
get on. It was a long freight and the men strung themselves
up and down the track the full length of it. In spite of his
efforts, several got aboard. My companion and I were quite
close to him and made no effort to get on.

My next encounter occurred at Bureau, Illinois, a division
point on the Rock Island. There were four of us on the tender
(behind the engine), my room mate and I and two lads who had
jumped on some miles down the line. They had been jumping
on and off and having a good time generally. Both of them had

158

THE HOBO

on white shirts and could be easily recognized by the train men.
At Bureau a rough looking " bull " poked his head over the tender,
waved a gun, cursed madly and told us to get down from there.
We were lying flat on one corner and I did not believe he had
seen us. The two boys did as they were told while I held my
room mate down and told him not to move. I heard him
swearing at the boys as the train pulled out.

With a companion I left a Rock Island freight one afternoon
to get a drink of water. We came back to see our train far up
the track toward Des Moines. I noticed by my table that an
express train would soon be in. My companion was a long, lean
individual, a bluffing, blustering type probably weighing about
175 pounds. A "bull" was waiting for us at Valley Junction,
just outside of Des Moines. He pulled us off" and marched us
out in front of all the passengers and into the station. We both
noticed that we had climbed a mail train and that our future was
not very bright. The station agent was not in and I sized
Mr. "Bull" up as he searched us. He was a young fellow, not
over twenty-five and did not look nearly as hard as he talked.
My companion was as pale as a sheet and would say nothing.
I talked to him as best I could, and after scaring us to the best of
his ability he finally turned us loose, actually buying us a ticket on
the auto bus to Des Moines. He acted almost human toward us.

A man, prominent in Hobohemia as a soap-boxer,
recites this experience out of a great number that he
has had with railroad and other private police.

59. I was travehng in Indiana with a man by the name of
Sullivan, known around the country as "Sully." We got off
at Flora, a railroad town in Indiana. It was cold and the town
was "hostile" because so many "bos" had been there that the
people were hardened to them. We knew better than to hang
around the railroad yards so we decided to go out of town a ways
and build a fire to keep warm while we waited for a train. We
started out but Sully decided to return and learn from the switch-
man when a train would be leaving. I said that I would go out
along the track and build a wind break with some old ties and
make a fire.

I dragged some ties together and had the wind break up by
the time Sully returned. I had the fire going too and was taking

THE HOBO PROBLEM

159

off my shoes. I had stepped in some water while dragging ties
and my feet were wet and cold.

Everything went fine for about half an hour. I was drying
my shoes and socks and Sully and I were talking about where we
were going and what to do. It was at the time of the Steel
Strike, and Sully was planning on going up there to get a job
as a "scab herder." He said that by that means he would get
in with the company and that he could work some "sabotage"
in the interest of the workers. At that time I was traveling and
selling literature, and holding street meetings in the interests of
the I.B.W.A.

All of a sudden something hit me in the back between the
shoulder blades. I looked around quickly and there were two
" bulls." We were on railroad property and I knew we were in for
it. Sully ducked and went over the fence. I had my shoes off
and couldn't run. One of them gave me another tap on the
back with a black jack. "What are you here for.?" "I am
drying my shoes," was the only answer I could think of. As I
hurried to get my shoes on one of them slapped me on the side
of the head. I jumped and ran while they cursed me and told
me never to let them catch me again. I met Sully an hour later
and together we cursed all railroad "bulls" as cowards and
sneaks.

Sometime after that I was told by a friend that Sully was an
employee of the Pinkerton agency. I did not believe it but
before a year was out I heard it from two or three sources. I
made an effort to find out and I learned it was true; that he was
in their employ at the time we got chased. Then it came to me
why he went back to talk to the switchmen and how he got away
without being hit. He was traveling with me because he was
trying to get a fine on me as an agitator.

These stories are typical of those that any expe-
rienced tramp can tell.

The private police "talks by hand" because it is
the most practical method at his command. The
argument of the club coincides most admirably with
the mood he is in when on duty searching trains
and keeping trespassers off" railroad property. He

160

THE HOBO

is a hunter and the tramp is his prey. If it is
a game to the poHce, it is no less so to the tramp.
One lad who had been caught a time or two said:
"I get a lot of *kick' out of riding trains out of
a place when I know the 'dicks' are trying to keep
me off."

When a town has a railroad policeman who is
"hard," the fact is soon noised about. A few years
ago, Galesburg, Illinois, was known throughout the
country for the "bad" colored policeman who
guarded the yards. The hobo who could tell a
story of an encounter with the big "nigger bull" had
an exploit to be proud of. For some time Green
River, Wyoming, boasted a "hard bull" known to
the "floating fraternity" as "Green River Slim."
As the reputation of a "bad" policeman travels
ahead, so the information about his tactics and meth-
ods. Where he may be found, how avoided, how he
watches the trains, are usually common knowledge
to the average "bo" before he reaches a town.

ATTITUDE OF THE PRIVATE POLICE

The Hobo News for April, 1922, reprinted an
article "The Hobo; a Real Problem to the Rail-
road," by T. T. Kelihor, chief special agent of the
Illinois Central Railroad. The article was given
space in the News in order that the hobos might see
how the "bulls" regarded them. It was followed by
a caustic criticism from the editor who charged that
the writer "like the rest of his fraternity cannot
distinguish between Hobos and Bums and Tramps
and Yeggs."

The railroads of this country are the chief sufferers from this
cancerous social growth. There is no property right or other

THE HOBO PROBLEM

161

rights of the railroad that the modern hobo feels called upon
to consider or respect. Millions of dollars' worth of rail-
way property and merchandise in transit are destroyed and
stolen annually by this class. The actual value of merchan-
dise stolen is only a small part of the loss of merchandise
in trains.

The average hobo realizes that he is not provided with means
of carrying away a large amount of bulky goods. Consequently
when hobos enter a merchandise car, they break open a great
many cases and dump or throw out the contents on the floor in
searching for small, compact, valuable goods that they can carry
off concealed about their persons. It often happens that they
will not take more than I50.00 value in valuable articles, but
they will destroy and damage ^500.00 worth of goods by destroy-
ing the original containers and soiling the contents by trampling
on them on the dirty floor of the car and otherwise damaging
them.

The amount of property the tramp actually steals ^
and destroys is not known. He probably is blamed
for more damage than he does. Those who speak for
the hobo class claim that most of the goods stolen
from cars is taken by train crews who shield them-
selves by pointing to the tramp, who is already an
outlaw as far as the railroad is concerned, because he
steals rides. Aside from the loss of property, Mr.
Kelihor calls attention to the great loss of life attrib-
uted to tramping.

The loss of life and limb on account of hobos riding
trains and trespassing on the right-of-way, and the
consequent financial and economic loss to the country
and the railroads, is appalling. The reports for all J
railroads during 191 9 show:

Trespassers killed. .
Trespassers injured

2,553
2,658

Total

5,211

162

THE HOBO

And during 1920:

Trespassers killed 2,166

Trespassers injured 2,362

Total 4,528

During 1921, on the Illinois Central and the Yazoo and
Mississippi railroads, 98 trespassers were killed and 221 injured.

How many of these persons killed were actually
hobos, perhaps even the railroads could not say. To
the railroad officials anyone is a trespasser on rail-
road property who is not a patron or an employee.
On the other hand, all the instances of tramps killed
or injured on the railroad are not recorded.

In a communication of August 2, 1922, to the
Homeless Man Committee, W. P. Riggs, chief special
agent of the American Express Company, says in
part:

On our more important exclusive trains we have inspectors
employed to ride them for the purpose of keeping tramps and
other unauthorized persons off such trains. As in the past we
have suffered serious loss through such parties breaking into our
sealed cars and robbing them. There have also been instances
where parties under the guise of tramps beating their way around
the country turned out to be real bandits, who would at the
opportune time hold up the mail clerks and messengers.

The tramp situation is the worst in this section during the
spring, summer, and fall; yet we also have more or less trouble
with them in winter months.

Generally speaking, we do not receive much assistance from
civil authorities in combatting tramps.

J. H. Hustin, Jr., superintendent of property
protection for the New York Central Railroad,
writes the committee as follows:

It is the endeavor of our police officers to keep the tramp off
our right-of-way. Many of our freight trains on the Western

THE HOBO PROBLEM

163

territory are protected by police officers enroute between termi-
nals, and it is part of their duty to keep such train riders off our
trains. Usually the tramp is placed under arrest and taken
before the local authorities for disposition.

During the spring and fall we experience most of our difficul-
ties with train riders, especially in connection with the opening
and closing of navigation.

In general, we receive the co-operation of the city authorities.
When business is quiet and a large number of men are out of
work, we obtain little direct assistance from the local police and
courts; while, when business is good and there is little unemploy-
ment, such co-operation is very satisfactory.

THE CIVII^AUTHOR^^^^ AND^THj;^ JEAMP

The average man on the street, or the average
housewife, sees in the tramp either a parasite or a
predacious individual. The average man may admit
that there are many migratory* men who would
work, but he feels that most of them will not, and
that they have neither permanent habits nor good
intentions; they need to be watched. If the public
opinion decrees that the town needs to be protected
against tramps, it is the duty of the police to do it.
There seems to be a relation between the pressure
that the police bring to bear on the tramp and the
pressure that the tramps impose upon the community
which is reflected in the pressure the residents place
on the police. In towns where vagrancy has become
a problem, the police are very energetic in keeping
down the number of apparently idle men.

In small towns, especially railroad towns, through
which many tramps move, the police are "hostile.'*
A policeman in a Wyoming town on the Union Pacific
Railroad asserts: "WeVe got to be hard on these
fellows or they will eat us out of house and home in
a week.*' In the larger towns the police are sporadic

164

THE HOBO

in their harshness. Men of the road will ask one
another about the attitude of the police in certain
cities. "Omaha was good the first part of the
winter," reported a man in a circle about a camp
fire, "I think I'll go to Chi this winter if I don't go
to the Coast. I heard they were pretty easy on
them there last winter." Again, "I was in Chicago
the most of the winter. They are all right there if
you stay on the 'stem.'" ''How has K. C. been
lately ? I haven't been there for five years."

The average hobo will often avoid certain towns
because he has heard that the "bo" will not be well
received. He will sometimes go to a town even when
he has heard of its drastic method of treating the
transients. A "hard" police force and a drastic
policy of repression do not keep tramps away. It
selects out those who are willing to run the risk.
Timid and inexperienced men are kept away, but the
daring and veteran tramps who cause the police the
most trouble are not so readily frightened off.

The police do not regard the tramp as a serious
offender. If he steals, it is generally for something
to eat or to wear. Every man on the road steals
potatoes or green corn from the nearby fields, or
fruit from the neighboring orchard, or chickens that
stray within reach of the jungle.

Tramps will boast about what they will do when
times get hard and cold weather crowds them. "I
won't starve. I worked all summer, and I won't go
hungry this winter." This man was "broke" in
spite of a summer's hard labor in the harvest fields.
His earnings quickly went for drink. He did get
hungry, and his clothes were torn to tatters before
spring, but he did not break in any windows as he had

THE HOBO PROBLEM

165

threatened. There are ''crooks" among the tramps,
but not so many as might be supposed. The average
tramp does not possess the courage to be a first-class
crook.

Warden Wesley Westbrook, of the Cook County
jail, supports this estimate of the tramp as an offender:

I am convinced that the tramp does not have the courage to
be a criminal. He will steal something to eat or wear, and he
may steal a door mat or some article he may sell for a quarter to
get a coffee an'; or, if he is drinking, to get the price of a pint of
whiskey. But tramps do not become criminal in the serious
sense. They make noise and threats sometimes but I have found
them an easy group to get along with. It takes considerable
courage to break into a house or to hold a person up and the
tramp will not do this. He seems to think that he can get a
living easier and with less risk.

But whether a major offender or not, the fact isl
that the homeless man is almost always liable to
arrest as a vagrant. He is marked as a potential
offender. He always faces the possibility of being
arrested on suspicion. Where the ex-convict is
harassed by the authorities because they have his
record, the tramp is often held because they do not
have his record. Often migrants are taken from
freight trains and transported many miles to the
scenes of some offense only to be turned loose. Often
they are held for days in local jails until they can
prove an alibi or their identity can be established.
For them there is no redress.

The status of the homeless man in the courts is
not high. Again and again men are arraigned before
the judge for vagrancy, fighting, drunkenness, beg-
ging, petty stealing, and other minor offenses. Any
policeman can walk along West Madison Street any
day and see some man or perhaps a dozen who could

166

THE HOBO

be arrested on some charge. If all policemen did
this the jails would be full and the police courts in
which these cases are tried would be continually over-
flowing. Only the most conspicuous cases are
arrested. Those are numerous enough to keep an
average judge busy in an average police court.

The judge who sits in the Desplaines Street police
court, where more tramps are arraigned than in any
other court in Chicago, faces sometimes as many as
loo men whose cases must be disposed of within a
few hours. One morning the investigator visited
Judge LaBuy*s court in the Desplaines Street sta-
tion and saw more than fifty cases of vagrancy, dis-
orderly conduct, drunkenness, etc., disposed of in less
than half an hour. There was little material at hand
by which the judge could arrive at a just decision,
consequently he disposed of the cases with only that
evidence that was apparent. Apparently neither the
needs of the individual were being met nor the
demands of justice satisfied.^

The experiences of the tramp or hobo in the police
court do not increase his respect for the law and the
administration of justice. He finds the administra-
tion of justice a mechanical process. At the points
where the law touches his life it has lost every trace
of the human touch unless it be the brutal "third
degree" or the traditional "sixty days." The courts
sometimes put fear into his heart but they do not
reform him.

What status as a citizen does the hobo wish ? His
attitude toward the police and his reaction toward
the civil authorities that represent organized society
seem to be tempered with antipathy. Most of the

^ Unpublished Document 80.

THE HOBO PROBLEM

167

songs he sings are songs of protest. The organiza-
tions to which he allies himself are antagonistic to
things as they are. ;

In many ways, the migratory worker is "a man<' |
without a country." By the very nature of his /
occupation he is deprived of the ballot, and liable 1/ \_
when not at work to arrest for vagrancy and tres- '
passing. The public ignores him generally, but now
and again pities or is hostile to him. With no status
in organized society, he longs for a classless society \
where all inequalities shall be abolished. In the
I.W.W. and other radical organizations, he finds in
association with restless men of his own kind the
recognition everywhere else denied him.

PART IV

HOW THE HOBO MEETS HIS PROBLEM

CHAPTER XII

PERSONALITIES OF HOBOHEMIA

LIKE other communities, Hobohemia has its emiJ
nent persons. In the flux and flow of the hfe
on the "main stem" certain individuals are conspicu-
ous. They are for the most part the soap-box,
orators, the organizers and promoters of Utopias.
These men are the most loved or the most hated of
all the Hobohemian celebrities. They are either
overwhelmingly approved or are unsparingly con-
demned as grafters and parasites. But whether
exploiters or benefactors they are centers of interest.
They are powers. Among the many men of this
group are: James Eads How, Dr. Ben L. Reitman,
John X. Kelly, Michael C. Walsh, Daniel Horsley,
and A. W. Dragstedt.

Outside of these leaders of the migratory workers
are mission workers, like Charles W. Langsman, of
the Bible Rescue Mission; and John Van de Water,
of the Helping Hand Mission; and Brigadier J. E.
Atkins, of the Salvation Army, which is neither a
mission nor a church.

It has been the policy of the Baptist Church on
North LaSalle Street and the Immanuel Baptist
Church on South Michigan Avenue more than other
churches to feed homeless men. Dr. Johnston Myers
is pastor of the latter church, and probably the most
talked-of minister in Hobohemia when times are
hard. Dr. Myers is contrasted by homeless men with
the Greensteins on South State Street. "Mother"
Greenstein's "bread line" is known the country over.

These or their counterparts may be found in any
city where hobos gather.

[171

172

THE HOBO

DR. JAMES EADS HOW, " THE MILLIONAIRE HOBO"

How, a man of wealth and education, renounced
all to share the lot of the hobos. He is not an
imposing personality, but he is a kindly, ingratiating,
almost saintly man. He is a dreamer and a visionary
with a program for reforming the world. Every cent
that he does not spend for doughnuts and twenty-five-
cent flops goes to the "cause." He hopes that other
millionaires will see his good works and imitate him.

How is a bachelor in his late forties. According
to rumor, which he neither affirms nor denies, he has
two college degrees, one of them in medicine. He
plans soon to enter a college for a year to study law,
so as to be the better prepared to promote the inter-
ests of the International Brotherhood Welfare Asso-
ciation and the "Hobo College." The I.W.W.
believes the world will be reformed by organization
and direct action first, and education second. How
puts education first. He hopes to establish a central
hobo university to which the numerous hobo colleges
in the large cities will be feeders.

To How the hobos are a "chosen people" who
have been denied their own. They will come into
their own in time. All his repeated failures to build
up a strong organization of migratory workers have
not shaken his faith in his vision. How still believes
that hobos and millionaires will sooner or later work
together in harmony to construct the House of
Happiness for humanity.

DR. BEN L. REITMAN, "tHE KING OF THE HOBOS"

With the exception of James Eads How, "the
milHonaire hobo," Reitman is known to more mi-
gratory workers than any other man in the country.

DR. HEN L. REITMAN

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

173

Several vears 3.Q0, while he was roaming casually
over the United States, Reitman was dubbed by the
papers the ''King of the Hobos." This title was
well earned by more than twenty years on the road,
including two or three tramps around the world.

His own description of himself given to the
papers several years ago still holds:

I am an American by birth, a Jew by parentage, a Baptist by \J
adoption, a physician and teacher by profession, cosmopolitan
by choice, a Socialist by inclination, a celebrity by accident, a
tramp by twenty years' experience, and a reformer by inspiration.

The only modification that he would make today
is that he has settled into the routine of his profession.
He still lectures at the "Hobo College.'' He still
intercedes for hobos and guarantees their bills in
case they do not make good. He is still a retuge for
the sick and afflicted and not a day passes that he
does not treat some down-and-outer free. He is still
a reformer but he has lost that 'Tean, hungry look"
of his hobo days, and since he owns a Ford, the hobos
charge him with being an aristocrat.

JOHN X. KELLY, SOAP-BOXER AXD ORGANIZER

John Kelly has been associated with James Eads
How for more than fifteen years. Before he met How
he was a curbstone orator. Beating his way from
city to city, he has talked in the "slave markets" of
every metropolitan city in the United States. He
has been jailed many times for his "soap-boxing,"
and has otten been forced to leave town between the
suns because of free-speech fights. He has often
beaten his way i,coo miles to be present at a hobo
convention and to participate in the demonstrations
of the hobo against the upper strata of society.

174

THE HOBO

Kelly is still an organizer, though he is not an
enthusiastic or hopeful one. He still has faith, but
he is no longer the staunch advocate of democratic
hobo organizations he formerly was. Years of bitter
experience have taught him that the average hobo
will not stand up under any responsibility. At one
time he was an I.W.W. soap-boxer, but he no longer
believes that the "Wobblies" are doing anything for
the hobo, and he frankly tells them so.

From a champion of democracy, he has swung
over to an advocate of benevolent autocracy. He is
still active in the "Hobo College," but is often at
variance with How and opposes him bitterly on
some issues.

How, an idealist, has never learned that the
ordinary hobo organization is almost sure to fail if
left to manage itself. "But," says Kelly, the organ-
izer, "they'll never succeed. They will never be
cured of quarreling over trifles. They have got to be
saved by some other method than their own power."

MICHAEL C. WALSH, ORGANIZER AND PROMOTER

Walsh has long been a factor in the hobo life of
Chicago. At present he is the head of a struggling
organization of workers known as the United Brother-
hood of American Laborers, which seeks to organize
workers around an insurance program. Walsh desig-
nates himself "Journalist and Lecturer, Founder of
the Famous Hobo College," "The Society of Vaga-
bonds," and "The Mary Garden Forum." He
further styles himself, not without reason, a graduate
of the "University of Adversity."

Left an orphan at an early age, he began wander-
ing, working casually at his trade as an iron-worker.

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

175

He traveled extensively over the United States and
went abroad as a tramp worker and a beach-comber.
In 1906-7, becoming interested in the problem of the
down-and-outs, he conducted the Liberty Hotel in
Seattle for the unemployed. Later in San Francisco
he was again active in the interest of the unem-
ployed. Still later he joined James Eads How in
St. Louis and aided in organizing the "penniless men
of his own city." In 191 5 he came to Chicago and
organized the "Hobo College." Other hobos say
that the "college" had been in existence years be-
fore Walsh arrived on the scene, but that he did
play a part in making it popular.

Walsh, as president of the "college," was able to
attract the assistance of many leading citizens. He
won the services of Mary Garden, who took special
pride in singing there occasionally. He has been
active among the unemployed, and at one time
attracted considerable public notice which got him
into disrepute with the local police.

Walsh has also sought the limelight as a lyceum
and chautauqua lecturer. His subjects dealt with
the various aspect of the hobo problem. Walsh,
like many of the hobo celebrities, only sees in the
tramp problem one cause, and that is, unemployment.
"Give the boys plenty of jobs and there will be no
tramps." This is a popular interpretation among
the tramps themselves.

DANIEL HORSLEY, " PROFESSOR"
AND BOOKDEALER

Daniel Horsley is a bookseller. His establish-
ment, at 1237 West Madison Street, is called the
hobo bookstore. The place is known as the "Pro-

176

THE HOBO

letariat" to the men on the **stem." Here many
men who have no other address receive their mail.

Says one man, "Where is lately, Dan " I don't

know, but I suppose he is on his way to Chicago.
I have had some mail for him for two weeks." The
men meet their friends at the "Proletariat," or they
leave things there for safekeeping. They all know
Mr. Horsley, and he has the good will of all the
"bos."

Horsley has been somewhat of a hobo himself, as
the following excerpt will show:

My occupation during the past 14 years has carried me
through many grades of labor. First, the coal mining industry
was for many years my sole occupation. The miner, having more
dangers to confront than most workers, does not last long. The
industry claimed two of my brothers. After having received
a dose of black damps (foul air), my health was not of the best so
I decided the open air would be the most beneficial.

I started with a picture machine to earn my living as I
recuperated. I traveled through Nebraska, Dakota, Wyoming,
Montana, and Alberta, Canada. In every small town we would
generally come across some of the boys (hobos). Returning from
the Northwest I came back East without the machine. I
stayed a while in Iowa and then went back to the West. Pre-
vious to and during the war I was in the shipbuilding industry.
Leaving there I worked for a short while in the woods but decided
to come East again. Visiting the eastern seaboard I saw great
industries closing down so I finally landed in Chicago.

Dan's work is selling books and periodicals but
he gets his recreation by mounting the soap box
occasionally. He is a devout student of Marxian
economics, and he likes nothing better than to talk
economics to an audience of workers. At the "Hobo
College" he is known as "professor," and he gives
lectures there now and then on economics, or his
other favorite topic, current history.

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

177

The Hobo News has printed a number of his
articles on economic subjects. His writing, like his
teaching and soap-boxing, is along Marxian lines.
He has little patience for anyone who sees things
differently. His hobby is education, and the book
business gives him a chance to get to the homeless
man and all other workers the kind of literature that
he thinks will start them thinking.

A. W. DRAGSTEDT, "tHE HOBO INTELLECTUAL"

Mr. Dragstedt is one of the numerous ex-
secretaries of the '*Hobo College" for the year 1922-
23. As secretary of the "college," it was his business
to attend to the finances of the institution and to
manage the programs. It is the secretary's job to
find speakers for various occasions, and to advertise
the meetings. In short, the secretary must be a
diplomat and an executive. Dragstedt has all the
earmarks of a good hobo secretary.

Born in Sweden some forty years ago, he emi-
grated to this country and settled in Montana before
he was out of his teens. He did not remain settled
long, but went here and there in search of work until
he developed into a regular hobo. He has worked at
nearly all the migratory occupations and has seen
nearly all the states of the Union. He is now one of
the seasoned veterans of the floating fraternity. He
is getting over his passion for travel, but he has not
yet learned to settle down. He still Hkes to feel that
he is free to go whenever the notion strikes him,
although for a year or so he has not gone very far
from the city.

Dragstedt is a man of wide and varied experience,
but he seldom can be persuaded to talk about him-

178

THE HOBO

self. He did his bit in the late war and went as far
as France. Most hobos who have been across like
to tell about it, but not he. But Dragstedt talks.
He has ideas and he talks about them. He has a
great many ideas, some of them consistent and
others not, but they keep him occupied and he is
generally keeping someone else interested. He is a
type of the hobo intellectual.

As a high brow, Dragstedt is a poet of no mean
ability. His poems either protest against the "sys-
tem" or idealize tramp life. He is also an artist.
The walls of the "Hobo College" are adorned with
samples of his workmanship such as cartoons and
decorated placards. He has an ambition to become
a cartoonist, but he is a hobo, and hobos are men who
will not apply themselves. He has two or three
scenarios that might be developed into fair picture
plays, but he will not go back to them to polish
them up. This calls for more application than he
cares to give. In this, again, he is a hobo, but he
does not grieve about that.

CHARLES W. LANGSMAN, EXPONENT OF LOVE

Recently, Superintendent Langsman celebrated
his twentieth spiritual birthday. For twenty years
he has been connected with the Bible Rescue Mission.
Before he became converted, to use his words, he was
an "ordinary bad man of the street." He has lived
the life of the tramp. He knows hobos from the
human side. He knows their weaknesses, their
temptations, and their trials. For twenty years he
has worked with them to aid them. Hundreds of
men have been lifted out of the quicksands of a

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

179

transient and aimless life by him, while he has
inspired thousands to make an effort.

In his official capacity he is the superintendent of
the Bible Rescue Mission. He is also vice-president
of the midwest district of the International Mission
Union. To the men on the street he is known as
"Charley." No mission man in Chicago is better
known.

The Bible Rescue Mission is the only one that
feeds men the year around. Mr. Langsman feels
that hungry men need food just as much in summer
as in winter. To him feeding is an evidence of the
spirit of Christianity. Because of this policy of feed-
ing, he has been severely criticized by the homeless
men themselves and by missions. Many of the "bos"
say that "Charley" has a "doughnut philosophy."
They maintain that religion is not worth much if it
can only get into a man*s heart through his stomach.
These criticisms come back to Superintendent Langs-
man, but they have not changed his policy.

One of Langsman's hobbies is a homeless man's
picnic each year. When "Charley" stages a picnic
it is a gala day for West Madison Street. All the
"boys" come out for a ride to the country in trucks
furnished by various firms and to eat sandwiches
provided by the churches.

JOHN VAN DE WATER, THE FRIEND OF
THE DESERVING

The Helping Hand Mission at 850 West Madison
Street is essentially a family mission with Sunday-
school, parents' classes, and other auxiliary activities.
It does not, however, neglect the homeless man.
Superintendent John Van de Water, for the last eight

180

THE HOBO

years superintendent of the Helping Hand Mission, is
one of the few practical men in the mission work.
Throughout the winter his organization feeds, upon
an average, loo men a day. However, no one is fed
who will not work. He operates a wood yard and any
able-bodied man who asks for aid is given a chance to
work. His is the only mission that has such a test.

Mr. Van de Water does not care for converts
that must be "bought" with doughnuts and coffee,
and he has little patience with the missions imposed
upon by men who become converted only for a
place to sleep or something to eat. He is in favor
of concerted action among missions, because where
they work separately they lay themselves open to
exploitation.

The homeless man is often an ungrateful indi-
vidual, but Mr. Van de Water feels that more than a
fourth of the men aided really appreciate the help
they get. Many men prefer the mission floor in
cold weather to the floor in the ''flophouse," which is
seldom scrubbed.

BRIGADIER J. E. ATKINS AND THE SALVATION
ARMY HOTELS

Most exploited and least loved by the hobos is the
Salvation Army. But the Salvation Army does more
for the hobo than any other agency. In every city of
the country it is the "good Samaritan" to the down-
and-outs. Not only is it interested in working upon
the hearts of men, but it seeks to help people to walk
alone. One of the pioneers in this program of
practical salvation is Brigadier J. E. Atkins.

Brigadier Atkins, a native of Wales, enlisted with
the Salvation Army forty-three years ago. He was

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

181

sent to this country in 1886 as a worker at the time
when the first split occurred in . the ranks. At that
time he was a regular officer in the ranks, and later
became a division officer. Before the war he was
placed in charge of the Salvation Army industrial
work in Denver, Kansas City, and Des Moines.

He entered the army as a chaplain, and was
assigned to the first division. He was attached to
"Young Teddy'* Roosevelt's organization, and as a
consequence saw considerable action. In this capa-
city he spent twenty-one months overseas, serving
with his organization in all its major offensives.
Twice he was gassed, and, as a result, his voice has
been permanently impaired.

Since his discharge from the army. Brigadier
Atkins has been in charge of the four Salvation Army
hotels for men in Chicago which cater to the superior
class of homeless men. These hotels are operated
on the usual Salvation Army business-like basis.
The policy is to make them pay their way, if possible,
but not to charge prices greater than the commercial
hotels. It is the Atkins aim to give all the service
that is consistent with the price: to keep the price
as low as possible, and to keep the places clean and
orderly. He is insistent on getting clean, sober
guests in the Army hotels, and no apparently clean,
sober man without funds need go away. The con-
trary is said to be true by many "bos," but they are
generally men who have been "found out."

DR. JOHNSTON MYERS AND THE IMMANUEL PLAN

We have knocked out the heavy stone barrier which stood
between us and the people and placed in its stead a glass, busi-
ness, inviting front, bearing such announcements as, "We wor-
ship, we heal, we clothe, we feed, we find employment for those

182

THE HOBO

in need"; ''Your friends are inside, come in." Between five
hundred and one thousand people accept this invitation daily.
We are prepared to meet and help them.

This is what Dr. Myers has done with a typical,
forbidding, gray-stone church, the Immanuel Baptist
Church, at 2320 Michigan Avenue. For twenty-
seven years he has been pastor of this church, and
all that time he has been adhering to the Immanuel
plan outlined above. For ten years previous to his
coming to the Immanuel Church, he was pastor of
the Ninth Street Baptist Church of Cincinnati, where
he followed this scheme of serving humanity as well
as God.

Dr. Myers is a practical religionist. He is bring-
ing religion out of the clouds, and has made it an
everyday, functioning affair. In his mind it does not
hurt a church to have a kitchen in the basement nor
to operate a restaurant in the building. His church
serves an excellent meal for thirty cents. Many of
the workers in the automobile salesrooms and the
students from the medical college near by are in the
habit of taking lunch at the church.

Most of the churches in the business area have
closed their doors, but the Immanuel Baptist is more
conspicuous today than ever before. The business
men on the street are proud of it. They contributed
recently to help rebuild it after the steeple had been
blown down by a gale. The church does not serve
its members as it used to, because most of the fami-
lies have moved away and now most of its congrega-
tion is composed of homeless men.

Dr. Myers does not try to preach to the men, nor
does he try to use the material aid he gives as a
means of coaxing men to become converted. He

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

183

does not believe in such conversions. He and his
staff have learned that the average homeless man can-
not hold money. The men who apply know this
too. "Johnston Myers will feed anyone but it is
pretty hard to get any 'jack' from him."

THE GREENSTEINS AND "mOTHER's

restaurant"

Few hobos enter Chicago who have not heard of
"Mother" Greenstein. For years Mother and
Father Greenstein ran a saloon on South State
Street. It was a barrel-house and the "bos"
flocked to it when they had money. It was one of
the few saloons in that area that was on " the square."
Among the hobos it is asserted that "Mother" is the
richest woman in Chicago. But her wealth has not
changed her habits. She reared a family of seven
children, and most of them have gone through college
and into business for themselves. The Greensteins
are proud of their family, but no less proud of their
work. With the coming of prohibition, they closed
the saloon and opened a restaurant on the corner of
Ninth and State streets.

The place is known as "Mother's Restaurant,"
and it is one of the few places in Hobohemia that has
the right to write "Home Cooking" on the window.
Day after day "Mother" is on the job, cooking
steaks and chops and French-fried potatoes, while
"Father" waits table and serves at the bar. Mother
lives in her work. She is proud of her kitchen, and
she likes to serve hungry men. The hobos say no
chef in the Blackstone or Drake can prepare more
savory dishes. The Greensteins did not earn their
reputation by serving hungry men who could pay

184 THE HOBO

their way, but by serving the penniless and hungry
at times when it is hard for hungry men to get food.

A sign is painted on the wall outside the restau-
rant: ''Mother's Restaurant. Don't Go Hungry.
See Mother." Last winter another sign placed in
the window read: "Attention! Starting Monday,
Dec. 20 [1921], 'Mother' Will Serve Hot Coffee and
Rolls Free .... from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m." Some
mornings the bread line at 901 South State Street
contained as many as 500 men who were out to get
a bowl of coffee and something to eat, but none were
ever turned away. There is always plenty of bread
and plenty of coffee, and good coffee, too.

The hobos do appreciate "Mother." The old-
timers of South State Street swear by her.

HOBO LEADERSHIP

This rapid sketch of a few persons in the Who's
Who of Hobohemia gives a picture of the local leader-
ship among the homeless men. All these persons,
and many others who embody either the aspirations
of the hobos or the organized religious and philan-
thropic impulses of the larger community toward
the migrant, must be taken into account in any
' fundamental policy and program for his welfare.
All these leaders are dealing with the homeless man
as a human being, that is, with his personal needs, his
memories, and his hopes. Working with these
leaders, the social agencies may secure both insight
into his attitudes and wishes and his co-operation for
his own well-being.

CHAPTER XIII

THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF THE HOBO

THE homeless man is an extensive reader. This
is especially true of the transients, the tramp,
and the hobo. The tramp employs his leisure to read
everything that comes his way. If he is walking
along the railroad track, he picks up the papers that
are thrown from the trains; he reads the cast-off
magazines. If he is in the city, he hunts out some
quiet corner where he may read. The tramp is a
man with considerable leisure, but few books.

The libraries are open to them, but comparatively
few use them. Public libraries are generally impos-
ing structures and, dressed as he usually is, the tramp
hesitates to enter them. Dan Horsley, who is a
newsdealer and runs a bookstore on West Madison, in
an article in the Hobo News for October, 1922, writes:

Just as a hobo would feel out of place in a Fifth Avenue
church, so he would feel in the average library. He does not
make general use of the libraries because of the menacing fear
of the law. He is always watching lest he be caught as a vagrant,
and this prevents him seeking recreative study; so he gets his
own literature to read and seeks some quiet place.

There are men in the hobo class who are not
deterred by these scruples. Some of the most
persistent users of the library have been initiated
during the winter time when they were forced inside
for shelter. The newspaper reading-room of the
Chicago Public Library has become for them a
favorite retreat during the cold winter days. It is
also a good resting-place in the hot summer months.

Lodging-houses sometimes have reading-rooms
in which guests may find the local newspapers and

[185

186

THE HOBO

current periodicals. Such reading material is usu-
ally extensively read and much thumb-marked.
Most lodging-houses and rooming-houses do not
provide reading matter for their guests. Seldom
does a tramp throw away a paper. He passes it on
to someone else, and after it has served its usefulness
as reading matter, he may use it at night for a bed
either in a "flophouse" or a park, along the docks,
or in box cars.

The hobo reads the daily papers but does not
indorse them. He looks with disapproval upon the
so-called "capitalist" press. If he belongs to the
radicals he is sure that the press is against him. But
in spite of this he reads it. He reads it for the
news.

Radical papers, to be sure, are steadfast in their
efforts to promote his interests and champion his
cause, but it is a cause that is so well known to the
homeless man that it has lost its novelty. There are
many radical papers. Among them are the Weekly
People, the Truth, the Industrial Solidarity, the
Worker, the Hobo News, the Liberator, the Voice of
Labor, These are not printed primarily for the
homeless man, but have a wide circulation among
the so-called "slum proletariat."

The homeless man reads a certain amount of
religious literature, but little of it is perused in the
spirit hoped for by the mission worker or street
evangelist. He reads it because it is handed to him
and it kills time.

Short-story magazines are popular. Next to
short-story magazines would come railroad or engi-
neering journals and other magazines dealing with
popular mechanics.

MEMBI-.RS OF THK JEia-ERSON PARK INTELLIGENTSIA

THE HOBO READS PROGRESSIVE LI TERATURE

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

187

Sex stories are, of course, popular. The tramp
has a preference for books of adventure and action.
Jack London is the most widely read of novelists
among the "bos." Books on mechanics, How to
Run an Automobile^ Uses of the Steel Square^ Block
Signal Systems^ Gas Engines^ have a wide sale.

Works on phrenology, palmistry, Christian Science,
hypnotism, and the secrets of the stars, etc., are of
perennial interest. Joke books and books explaining
tricks with cards or riddles, detective stories, and
books in the field of the social sciences are surprisingly
popular. Bookstores patronized by tramps keep in
stock special pocket-size editions of works on soci-
ology, economics, politics, and history. The radical
periodicals recommend books to the serious-minded
hobo reader. Following is a list from the Hobo News:

Easy Outlines on Economics^ by Noah Ablett
A Worker Looks at History^ by Mark Starr
Philosophical Essays; Positive Outlines of Philosophy^ by
J. Dietzgen

Among the books recommended for the proletariat
in the I.W.W. literature list for April, 1922, are the
following :

The Ancient Lowly ^ C. Osborne Ward
Ancient Society ^ Lewis H. Morgan
Capital, Karl Marx
Capital Today, Herman Cahn
The Economic Causes of War, Achille Loria
Essays on the Materialistic Conception of History, Antonio
Labriola

Evolution of Man, Wilhelm Boelache

Evolution of Property, Paul Lafargue

Social and Philosophical Studies, Paul Lafargue

Stories of the Great Railroads, Charles Edward Russell

The Universal Kinship, J. Howard Moore

188

THE HOBO

History of Great American Fortunes^ Gustavus Myers
History of the Supreme Court^ Gustavus Myers
Origin of the Family; Private Property and the State ^ Frederick
Engels

The History of the IW.W.^ Frederic Brissenden

These books are kept in stock at the I.W.W.
headquarters and extensively sold and read by the
intellectuals. Soap-box orators get fuel for the fires
they seek to kindle from books of this sort. It is
common knowledge on the "stem" that one can tell
the books a speaker reads by the opinions he
expresses and the programs he favors.

THE HOBO WRITER

The hobo who reads sooner or later tries his hand
at writing. A surprisingly large number of them
eventually realize their ambition to get into print.
It is not unusual to meet a man of the road with a
number of clippings in his pocket of articles he has
contributed to the daily press. Most of the great
dailies have columns that are accessible to the free-
lance writer, and the pages of the radical press are
always open to productions of the hobo pen. Most
of these contributions are in the form of letters to
editors. One man who writes many such letters
proudly exhibited an article recently published in
the Chicago 'Daily Tribune. It was signed "F. W. B."
He explained that these letters stood for "Fellow
Worker Block.'* That was his nom de plume.

The hobo writer does not concern himself with
letters alone. A number of them are ambitious to
become novelists, essayists, and even dramatists.
Some of these men have manuscripts that they have
carried about with them for years in search of a

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

189

publisher. One such author, an old man, said: "I
have material enough together to write a book. All
I want is to get someone to help me organize it. I
want someone to go over it with me. You see,
I never had much schooling and my grammar is not
very good." Another man carried about a great roll
of manuscript which purported to be a "society
novel." It was entitled The Literary in Literature.
It was written in lead pencil and represented the
accumulated effort of several years. When the mood
struck him, he added a chapter or a paragraph.
Before the last page had been written, however, the
first was so badly dimmed from being carried around
that it could not be deciphered.

Some hobo writers have visions of a financial
success that will put them on "easy street." One
man offered to share the proceeds from the publica-
tions of a series of essays on economics if the investi-
gator would typewrite it. "Why, this will bring
thousands of dollars," he said. "If I can only get a
publisher interested, but," he added, "they don't
seem to care for live subjects."

Another hobo writes songs and has the same diffi-
culty with publishers. He still feels, after hundreds
of failures, that he will eventually get into the
limelight.

The hobo writer who plies the pen for the love of
it is not unusual. One man has been working on a
play for several months. He cannot get anyone
interested, but that has not quenched his enthusiasm.
Another man spends most of his leisure on the north
side of Hobohemia, writing fantastic paragraphs.
They are interesting and amusing. He does not
try to publish them. He writes them because he

190

THE HOBO

enjoys it. Most numerous of the hobo writers are
the propagandists and dreamers. They are the
chief contributors to the rebel press. Many of them
care to be identified with no other. They are not
artists nor do they write for gain. They have Httle
patience for the writer who hves for the so-called
"filthy lucre."

But whatever their motive, most of these hobo
writers, for the want of a better medium, become
contributors to the radical press. Without them
radical sheets like the I.W.W. publications and the
Hobo News would not appeal to the homeless man.
The radical press in turn serves as a pattern by
which hobo writers fashion and color their literary
productions.

THE "industrial SOLIDARITY^

The Industrial Solidarity is a typical I.W.W.
paper. It comes nearer than any other I.W.W. pa-
per to reflecting the mind and the spirit of the
average hobo. It is a six- or eight-page weekly and
sells for five cents. It is published in Chicago from
where it is distributed to individual subscribers or
in bundles to the peddlers or newsdealers.

The issue of July i, 1922, contains the following
articles:

In bold headlines across the front page under the caption,
"Company Brought on Herrin Mine War" is a detailed narrative
of the whole affair written by George Williams who is supposed
to have been an eye-witness. This article contains four full
columns, two of them on the front page. Another front-page
article is devoted to the freeing of political prisoners. It has
special reference to the fifty-two I.W.W. in Leavenworth who
refused to ask the President for pardon. The article is headed,
"Hundreds of Cities in Million Signature Petition Drive."

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

191

The slogan was "Let Them Go Free." Attorney-General
Daugherty, who at best is not popular with the floating popu-
lation, is shown in a cartoon on the front page marching in a
parade carrying a banner on which is inscribed, "Please, Let
Morse out of Prison." Over the cartoon is written the ironical
legend, which harks back to some remark that had been used
against the "Wobblies," "This is no Children's Crusade."

Considerable space is devoted to the spring drive for member-
ship. At the time of the publication of this number the drive
was on in full blast in the harvest fields where the so-called
"slugging committees" were out enroHing members. One long
article was published telling of "conditions" in Kansas and
Oklahoma where the Ku Klux Klan was offering active opposi-
tion to the LW.W. The articles had been sent in by some
"bo" who told in detail how the "Wobblies" outwitted the
"town clowns," or local police, and the K.K.K.

According to the LW.W. literature list for April,
1922, the following periodicals are issued regularly:

Name

Issued

Where
Published

No. Each
Issue

Language

Industrial Solidarity

Weekly

Chicago

12,000

English

Weekly

Seattle

10,000

English

Bi-weekly

New York

(?)

English

Bi-weekly

Chicago

3,000

Russian

A Felszabadulas

Weekly

Chicago

5,000

Hungarian

Weekly

Chicago

6,000

Italian

Solidaridad

Weekly

Chicago

5,500

Spanish

Rahotnicheska Mysl . . . .

Weekly

Chicago

2,800

Bulgarian

Muncitorul

Bi-weekly

Chicago

4,200

Roumanian

Jedna Velka Unie

Monthly

Chicago

2,700

Czecho-Slovak

Monthly

Chicago

7,000

Finnish

Daily

Duluth

16,000

Finnish

Bi-weekly

Duluth

3>5oo

Croatian

"Wobbly" papers are extensively used as lesson
sheets. Solidarity has one long article of this char-
acter which is an analysis and criticism of craft union-
ism. Finally, there are several communications from

192

THE HOBO

members on the road and four or five editorials on
questions of the day.

The Solidarity is only one of a number of I.W.W.
publications, but the most important as far as the
hobos are concerned. The organization maintains a
publishing company of its own, the Equity Press,
which is situated at the I.W.W. headquarters in
Chicago.

THE "hobo news"

The Hobo News^ published in St. Louis, contains
sixteen pages and carries no advertising. It is pub-
lished monthly and sells for ten cents. It is distrib-
uted, like Solidarity y by bundle orders or subscription.

The July, 1922, issue of the Hobo News has the
following contents:

An article by Laura Irwin entided, "Half Dead (Unnecessary
Movement a Crime)." It laments the fact that more care is
given to machines and animals than to men by the big interests.
Another article is a reprint entitled, "Hobos in Missouri."
It is a description of life on the road. Daniel Horsley, a Chi-
cagoan, has an article on "Hobo Life and Death: Something to
Think About." It is a discussion of the struggle for existence.
There is also a short story entitled "Callahans's Castle" depict-
ing jungle pastimes.

Under the heading "Near Poetry" are several short poems
by different hobo contributors. Some of the titles are: "His-
tory," "Adrift," "To a Hobo," "Labor's March," "Our Boss,"
"The Hobo: of Course," and "The Glory of Toil." Several
letters to the editor deal with subjects of general interest to the
hobos. The editor writes on the prospects for work the coming
winter. There are two cartoons. One shows the figure of a
worker hewn out of stone at the top of a mountain. He is
being assailed by politicians and capitalists. Over the cartoon
is this legend, "These Shall Not Prevail against Him." Another
cartoon shows a tramp waiting at the water tank. A train is
approaching in the distance. It is entitled, "The Regular Stop."

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

193

No class of men are in a better position to know
life than the migratory population. These men have
a large fund of experience, but they do not seem to
have developed any sense of the relative values.
With all this experience and with all these contacts
with life, they are not able to interpret it. The intel-
lectuals are obsessed by the class struggle, and instead
of writing literature, they prefer to repeat the formu-
las and play with the mental toys which the doctri-
naire reformers and revolutionists have fashioned for
them.

We cannot say therefore that the radical press in
monopolizing the hobo pens has robbed art. Among
all these contributors to the radical publications,
there are few who might produce literature. Many
of them do not have patience to write literature nor
the courage to formulate a new idea. They prefer
to ride a hobby and repeat familiar formulas.

Writers who do find themselves do not remain in
the hobo class. Others have the ability to rise, but
because of drink or drugs are unable to do so. These
men may find a place on the staff of one of the radi-
cal papers. They may even aspire to an editorship.
Such a goal is not uncommon among the intellectuals.
The Hobo News is one paper that the hobo writer likes
to be identified with because it is more than a doc-
trinaire propagandist sheet. It maintains some liter-
ary features, and every issue has one or more articles
or poems that portray hobo life.

CHAPTER XIV

HOBO SONGS AND BALLADS

MUCH so-called hobo verse which has found its
way into print was not written by tramps,
but by men who knew enough of the life of the road
to enable them to interpret its spirit. The best
V hobo poems have been written behind prison bars.
VMany of the songs of the I.W.W. have been written
W jail.

The poetry most popular among the men on the
road are ballads describing some picturesque and
tragic incident of the hobo's adventurous life. The
following by an unknown author illustrates the
type. Here is an incident told in the language of
the road in a manner that every "bo" can under-
stand and appreciate.

The Gila Monster Route

The lingering sunset across the plain
Kissed the rear end of an east-bound train.
And shone on the passing track close by
Where a dingbat sat on a rotten tie.

He was ditched by the "shack," and cruel fate.
The "con" highballed, and the manifest freight,
Pulled out on the stem behind the mail.
And beat it east on a sanded rail.

As she pulled away in the fading night
He could see the gleam of her red tail lights.
Then the moon arose, and the stars came out;
He was ditched on the Gila Monster Route.

There was nothing in sight but sand and space;

No chance for a bo to feed his face;

Not even a shack to beg for a lump.

Nor a hen house there to frisk for a gump.

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

195

As he gazed far out on the soHtude
He dropped his head and began to brood.
He thought of the time he lost his pal
In the hostile berg of Stockton, Cal.

They had mooched the stem and threw their feet,
And speared four bits on which to eat;
But deprived themselves of their daily bread,
And slufFed the coin for dago-red.

Then, down by the tracks, in the jungle's glade.
On the cool, green grass in the tule's shade.
They shed their coats, and ditched their shoes,
And tanked up full of that colored booze.

Then, they took a flop with their hides plumb full.
And did not hear the harness bull.
Till he shook them out of their boozy nap,
With a husky voice and a loaded sap.

They were charged with vag, for they had no kale.
And the judge said sixty days in jail;
But the john had a bundle, the worker's plea.
So he gave him a floater and set him free.

They had turned him out, but ditched his mate.
So he grabbed the guts of an east-bound freight;
He had held his form to the rusty rods
Till the brakeman hollered, "Hit the sod."

So the bo rolled off and in the ditch.
With two switch lights and a rusty switch,
A poor, old, seedy, half-starved bo
On a hostile pike without a show.

Then all at once from out of the dark

Came the short, sharp notes of a coyote's bark;

The bo looked up and quickly rose,

And shook the dust from his threadbare clothes.

Far oflF in the west through the moonlight night
He saw the gleam of a big head light;
An east-bound stock run hummed the rail.
It was due at the switch to clear the mail.

196

THE HOBO

As she pulled up close the head-end "shack"
Threw the switch to the passing track.
The stock rolled in and off the main,
The line was clear for the west-bound train.

As she hove in sight far up the track.

She was working steam with the brake shoes slack;

Whistling once at the whistling post.

She flittered by like a frightened ghost.

You could hear the roar of the big six wheel,
As the drivers pounded the polished steel,
And the screech of the flanges on the rail.
As she beat it west o'er the desert trail.

The John got busy and, took a risk.
He climbed aboard and began to frisk,
He reached up high and began to feel
For an end-door pin, then he cracked a seal.

'Twas a double-deck stock loaded with sheep;
The John got in and went to sleep;
The "con" highballed, and she whistled out.
They were off — down the Gila Monster Route.

The following ballad by Harry Kemp, the " tramp
poet," describes a situation that is familiar to those
who know Hobohemia. Many men in the tramp
class, to escape cold and hunger, have yielded to a
similar temptation.

The Tramp Confession

We huddled in the mission
\ Fer it was cold outside
And listened to the preacher
Tell of the Crucified;

Without a sleety drizzle

Cut deep each ragged form.
An' so we stood the talkin'

Fer shelter from the storm.

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

197

They sang of Gods and Angels

An' Heaven's eternal joy
An' things I stopped believin'

When I was still a boy;

They spoke of good an' evil

An* offered savin' grace
An' some showed love for mankind

Ashinin' in their face.

An' some their graft was workin'

The same as me and you;
But some was urgin* on us

What they believed was true.

We sang an' dozed an' listened,

But only feared, us men
The time when, service over.

We'd have to mooch again.

An' walk the icy pavements.
An' breast the snow storm gray.

Till the saloons was opened.
An' there was hints of day.

So, when they called out, "Sinners,
Won't you come ?" I came . . . .

But in my face was pallor

An* in my heart was shame ....

An' so fergive me, Jesus,
Fer mockin* of thy name.

Fer I was cold an* hungry;

They gave me food and bed
After I kneeled there with them.

An* many prayers was said.

An* so fergive me, Jesus,

I didn't mean no harm ....

Fer outside it was zero
An' inside it was warm.

1^8

THE HOBO

Yes, I was cold an* hungry

An' Oh, Thou Crucified,
Thou Friend of all the Lowly,

Fergive the lie I lied.^

WANDERLUST

Many men have seen charms in the hfe on the
road; Walt Whitman and Vachel Lindsay are or were
tramp poets. For men who cannot endure the
security and the tyranny of convention, this care-
free existence has an irresistible appeal. The follow-
ing swinging poem by H. H. Knibbs vibrates with
the call of the road.

Nothing to Do but Go

Fm the wandering son with the nervous feet,

That never were meant for a steady beat;

Fve had many a job for a little while,

Fve been on the bum and Fve lived in style;

And there was the road, stretchin' mile after mile,

And nothing to do but go.

So, beat it. Bo, while your feet are mates;
Take a look at the whole United States;
There's the little fire and the pipe at night;
And up again when the morning's bright;
With nothin' but road and sky in sight.
And nothin' to do but go.

So, beat it. Bo, while the goin's good.
While the birds in the trees are sawin' wood;
If today ain't the finest for you and me.
Then there's tomorrow that's going to be.
And the day after that, that's comin', see.
And nothin' to do but go.

1 H. Kemp, The Cry of Youth, p. 60. By special permission of the pub-
lisher, Mitchell Kennerley.

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

199

Then beat it, Bo, while you're young and strong;
See all you can, for it won't last long;
You can tarry for only a little spell,
On the long, gray road to Fare-Ye-Well,
That leads to Heaven or maybe Hell,
And nothin' to do but go.^

"Away from Town/' by Harry Kemp, is a vivid
picture of the springtime yearning that the hobo
feels to be off to the country after spending the
winter in the city's slums. Not all tramps who
feel, with the passing of winter, the urge to move, are
enticed from the "gaunt, gray city" in search of
"country cheer," but a goodly number love the
grass and shade and a season in the "jungles." It is
the same call that makes truants of school boys and
fishermen of staid business men.

High perched upon a box-car, I speed, I speed today;
I leave the gaunt, gray city some good, green miles away,
A terrible dream in granite, a riot of streets and brick
A frantic nightmare of people until the soul turns sick —
Such is the high, gray city with the live green waters 'round
Oozing up from the Ocean, slipping in from the Sound.
I'd put up in the Bowery for nights in a ten-cent bed
Where the dinky "L" trains thunder and rattle overhead;
I'd traipsed the barren pavements with pain of frost in my
feet;

I'd sidled to hotel kitchens and asked for something to eat.
But when the snow went dripping, and the young spring came
as one

Who weeps because of the winter, laughs because of the sun
I thought of a limpid brooklet that bickers through weeds all
day.

And I made a streak for the ferry, and rode across in a dray,

^ H. H. Knibbs, Songs of the Outlands^ p. 50. By permission, and special
arrangement with, Houghton, Mifflin Company, the authorized publishers.

200

THE HOBO

And dodged into the Erie where they bunt the box-cars round.
I peeled my eye for detectives, and boarded an outward bound.
For you know when a man's been cabined in walls for part of
a year,

He longs for a place to stretch in, he hankers for country cheer.'
POEMS OF PROTEST

In spite of its transient charms, the life of the
tramp is a hard one. It is fine to be free, but it is
good to have a home. The hobo Hkes freedom, but
is not satisfied to be an Ishmaelite. His speeches
and his poetry are filled with protests against the
social order which refuses to make a place for him;
against the system that makes him an outcast.

The following poem entitled "The Dishwasher"
was written by Jim Seymour, the "Hobo poet.'*
The second half, omitted here, is a prophecy of the
overthrow of the "system."

Alone in the kitchen, in grease laden steam,
I pause for a moment — a moment to dream:
For even a dishwasher thinks of a day.
Wherein there'll be leisure for rest and for play.
And now that I pause, o'er the transom there floats,
A strain of the Traumerei's soul stirring notes.
Engulfed in a blending of sorrow and glee,
I wonder that music can reach even me.

But now I am thinking; my brain has been stirred.
The voice of a master, the lowly has heard.
The heart breaking sobs of the sad violin.
Arouse the thoughts of the sweet might have been.
Had men been born equal, the use of their brain,
Would shield them from poverty: free them from pain,
Nor would I have sunk into the black social mire.
Because of poor judgment in choosing a sire.

^ H. Kemp, The Cry of Youth, p. 78. By permission of the publisher,
Mitchell Kennerley.

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

201

But now I am only a slave of the mill,
That plies and remodels me just as it will;
That makes me a dullard in brain burning heat;
That looks at rich viands not daring to eat;
That works with his red, blistered hands ever stuck,
Down deep in the foul indescribable muck;
Where dishes are plunged seventeen at a time;
And washed in a tubful of sickening slime.

But on with your clatter; no more must I shirk.
The world is to me but a nightmare of work.
For me not the music, the laughter and song;
For no toiler is welcome amid the gay throng.
For me not the smiles of the ladies who dine;
Nor the sweet, clinging kisses, begotten of wine.
For me but the venting of low, sweated groans,
That twelve hours a night have instilled in my bones.

Arturo Giovannitti won his reputation as a poet
by a poem in blank verse which pictures the monot-
ony of prison life. "The Walker" was written in
jail, as was "The Bum," the poem by which Gio-
vannitti is best known among the hobos. As an
I.W.W. and a radical, his writings breathe the spirit
of protest. "The Bum," the first three verses of
which follow, is an eloquent tirade against religion:

The dust of a thousand roads, the grease
And grime of slums, were on his face;

The fangs of hunger and disease

Upon his throat had left their trace;

The smell of death was in his breath.
But in his eye no resting place.

Along the gutters, shapeless, fagged.
With drooping head and bleeding feet,

Throughout the Christmas night he dragged,
His care, his woe, and his defeat;

Till, gasping hard, with face downward
He fell upon the trafficked street.

202

THE HOBO

The midnight revelry aloud

Cried out its glut of wine and lust
The happy, clean, indifferent crowd

Passed him in anger and disgust:
For — fit or rum — he was a bum,

And if he died *twas nothing lost.^

In the following poem, by an unknown writer,
"The Bum on the Rods and the Bum on the Plush"
states the case of labor against capital in the language
and accents of the hobo:

The bum on the rods is hunted down

As the enemy of mankind,
The other is driven around to his club

Is feted, wined, and dined.
And they who curse the bum on the rods

As the essence of all that is bad,
Will greet the other with a winning smile.

And extend the hand so glad.

The bum on the rods is a social flea

Who gets an occasional bite.
The bum on the plush is a social leech.

Blood-sucking day and night.
The bum on the rod is a load so light

That his weight we scarcely feel,
But it takes the labor of dozens of men

To furnish the other a meal.

As long as you sanction the bum on the plush

The other will always be there.
But rid yourself of the bum on the plush

And the other will disappear.
Then make an intelligent, organized kick,

Get rid of the weights that crush.
Don't worry about the bum on the rods,

Get rid of the bum on the plush.

^ Arturo Giovannitti, Arrows in the Gale, p. 40.

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

203

The following verses are taken from a selection
written by Henry A. White, who is a veteran of the
road and for many years connected with the publica-
tion of the Hobo News, It is entitled "The Hobo
Knows." In it one can detect an unfamiHar note of
resignation, the resignation of an old man who has
hoped and struggled, and learned.

He knows the whirr of the rolling wheels,
And their click on the time-worn joints;

His ear is attuned to the snap and snarl
Of the train, at the rickety points.

He knows the camp by the side of the road.
And the "Java" and "mulligan" too;

The siding long, and the water tank
Are as home to me and you.

He knows the fright of hunger and thirst.

And of cold and of rain as well;
Of raggedy clothes and out-worn shoes.

An awful tale he can tell.

He knows what it means to slave all day,

And at night eat the vilest of fare;
What a tale he can tell of loathsome bunks.

Cramped quarters, and noisome air.

He knows what the end of it all will be
When he crosses the hne at the goal;

A rough, pine box, and a pauper's grave
And he has paid his toll.

THE hobo's observations AND REFLECTIONS
ON LIFE

The poets who have written best about the tramp
are those who have recorded their reflections on their
own life and his. Robert W. Service sees in "The

204

THE HOBO

Men That Don't Fit In" a great group of wanderers
who move here and there in response to an imperious
wanderlust.

There's a race of men that don't fit in,

A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin.

And roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood.

And they climb the mountain crest,
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood.

And they don't know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far;

They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are

And they want the strange and new.
They say, " Could I find my proper groove

What a deep mark I would make!"
So they chop and change, and each fresh move

Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets as he strips and runs

With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones

Who win the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled.

Forgets that his prime is past.
Till he stands one day with a hope that's dead,

In the glare of the truth at last.^

There are men in the tramp class who are always
chasing rainbows, always expecting to strike it
rich" sometime and somewhere. Bill Quirke, for
many years contributor to the Hobo News, gives
expression to this sentiment in the poem, "One Day;
Some Way, Til Make a Stake." This poem was

^ From The Spell of the Yukon, p. 15, by Robert W. Service, author of Ballads
of a Cheechakoy Rhymes of a Red Cross Man, and Ballads of a Bohemian, published
by Barse & Hopkins, Newark, N.J.

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

205

written a few months before Bill was killed by an
automobile in California. From the heart of it we
quote:

For years I've drilled the rough pathway,
And weathered many a wintry blast,

ril make another stake some day
For luck must turn my way at last.

Fm far too old for working, too

They say my work is almost through;

My ore assesses never a flake

But still I hope to make a stake.

In the Hobo News of August, 1921, Charles Thorn-
burn records his reflections while he contemplates the
empty, beaten faces of the men of the *'stem":

With ever restless tread, they come and go.

Or lean intent against the grimy wall,
These men whom fate has battered to and fro,

In the grim game of life, from which they all
Have found so much of that which is unkind,

Still hoping on, that fortune yet may mend.
With sullen stare, and features hard and lined.

They wander off to nowhere, and the end.

Their thoughts we may not fathom, in their eyes

One seems to sense a vision, as though fate
Had let one little glimpse of fairer skies

Brighten their souls before she closed the gate.
Yet have they hopes and dreams which bring them peace,

Adding to life's flat liquor just the blend
Called courage, that their efforts may not cease

To seek the gold, hid at the rainbow's end.

"The Wanderer" is from the pen of Charles
Ashleigh. It is said to have been written in jail. It
is a justification, not complete, of the hobo principle
of living for the day and by the day, of enjoying

206

THE HOBO

the sweets of life, if they can be secured, and of
avoiding its problems.

Is there no voice to speak for these, our kin;

The strange, wild sorrows for the wanderer's soul;
The shining comradeship we sometimes win

When on our wilful way to visioned goals ?

We are the ones to whom the forests speak,
For whom the little by-streets run awry;

Ships are our mistresses, and vaulted peaks
Draw us unconquered to the tyrant sky.

And what if we in sordid corners sink.

Or perish in the crash of lawless fight;
Our souls have had the wine of life to drink,

We've had our blazing day. Let come the night.

The hobo characterizes the district where the
employment agencies are located as the "slave
market." Louis Melis, prominent in Hobohemia
as a soap-boxer, has written a poem entitled "The
Slave Market" from which the following verses
have been taken:

The Slave Market

This is the city of lost dreams and defeated hopes;

Always you are the mecca of the Jobless,

The seekers after life and the sweet illusions of happiness.

Within your walls there are the consuming

Fires of pain, sorrow and eternal regrets.

Roses never bloom here; silken petals

Cannot be defiled.

Streets in ragged attire, sang-froid in their violence;
Years come and go; still your hideousness goes on
And mute outcasts garnish
Your every rendezvous.

Blind pigs, reeking with a nauseous smell everywhere;
The so-called "flops," the lousy beds

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

207

Where slaves of mill and mine and rail and shop

Curl up and drop away unconscious,

In fair pretense of sleep.

Employment sharks entrapping men,

Human vultures in benign disguise,

Auctioning labor at a pittance per day.

And it's always "What will you give ?"

"What will you take ?"

The pocketing of fat commissions;

Old men, young men, tramps, bums, hobos,

Laborers seeking jobs or charity

Each visioning happiness from afar.

They swarm the city streets, these slaves,

For all must live and strive,

And always the elusive job sign

Greets their contemplative glance.

A job — food, clothing, shelter;

Wage slaves selling their power;

Oh, you Slave Market, I know you!

From timbered lands. North, East, South and West

From distant golden grain belts,

From endless miles of rail.

These workers float to the city.

Timber beasts, harvesters, gandy dancers —

Adventurers all. From every clime and zone.

Each comes with hope of work or

Else to blow his pile.

BATTLE SONGS OF THE HOBOS

There are many types of tramp songs but most con-
spicuous are the songs of protest. The I.W.W. have
done much to stimulate song writing, mostly songs of
the struggle between the masses and the classes.

Most hobo songs are parodies on certain popular
airs or on hymns. One can easily determine when
certain songs were written if he knows when certain
popular airs, to which they are fitted, were the rage.

208

THE HOBO

The tunes most used by the tramp song writers are
those that are so well known that the song may be
sung by any group of transients. When the songs
are parodies on hymns there is usually a note of
irony running through them. The following is called
the hobo's "Harvest War Song." It was written
by Pat Brennan and is sung to the tune of
"Tipperary."

We are coming home, John Farmer; We are coming back to stay.
For nigh on fifty years or more, we've gathered up your hay.
We have slept out in your hayfields; we have heard your morn-
ing shout;

We've heard you wondering where in hell's them pesky go-
abouts ?

Chorus

It's a long way, now understand me; it's a long way to town;
It's a long way across the prairies, and to hell with Farmer
Brown.

Here goes for better wages, and the hours must come down.
For we're out for a winter's stake this summer, and we want no
scabs around.

You've paid the going wages, that's what kept us on the bum,
You say you've done your duty, you chin-whiskered son-of-a-gun.
We have sent your kids to college, but still you rave and shout
And call us tramps and hobos, and pesky go-abouts.

But now the long wintry breezes are a-shaking our poor frames,
And the long drawn days of hunger try to drive us bos insane,
It is driving us to action; we are organized today;
Us pesky tramps and hobos are coming back to stay.

Joe Hill, whose real name was Joseph Hilstrom,
holds the place of honor among the I.W.W.'s as a song
writer. Before his death he was one of the most
enthusiastic of the I.W.W. organizers. His execution
in Utah in 191 5 has not lessened his popularity among

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

209

the "Wobblies/* Most of his songs are
"The Tramp" is a parody on the old tune:
Tramp, Tramp; the Boys Are Marching/*

If you will shut your trap,
I will tell you 'bout a chap,
That was broke and up aginst it too for fair;
He was not the kind to shirk.
He was looking hard for work,
But he heard the same old story everywhere.

Chorus

Tramp, tramp, tramp, keep on a-tramping.
Nothing doing here for you;
If I catch you 'round again;
You will wear the ball and chain.
Keep on tramping, that's the best thing you can do.

He walked up and down the street,

'Till the shoes fell off his feet;

In a house he spied a lady cooking stew,

And he said, "How do you do.

May I chop some wood for you ?"

What the lady told him made him feel so blue.

'Cross the street a sign he read,

"Work for Jesus," so it said,

And he said, "Here is my chance, I'll surely try,"

And he kneeled upon the floor.

Till his knees got rather sore.

But at eating time he heard the preacher say:

Down the street he met a cop,
And the copper made him stop.

And he asked him, "When did you blow into town ?"

"Come with me to the judge."

But the judge he said, "Oh fudge!

Bums that have no money needn't come around."

parodies.
"Tramp,

"The Preacher and the Slave,'' also written by
Joe Hill and sung to the tune of "Sweet Bye and

210

THE HOBO

Bye," is especially popular among the malcontents
because of its attack upon religion:

Long haired preachers come out every night,
Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right;
But when asked how 'bout something to eat
They will answer in voices so sweet:

Chorus

You will eat bye and bye

In that glorious land above the sky;

Work and pray, live on hay.

You'll get pie in the sky when you die.

And the starvation army, they play,
And they sing and they clap and they pray.
Till they get all your coin on the drum.
Then they'll tell you when you're on the bum:

Workingmen of all countries, unite.
Side by side we for freedom will fight;
When the world and its wealth we have gained
To the grafters we'll sing this refrain:

Last Chorus

You will eat bye and bye

When you've learned how to cook and to fry;

Chop some wood, 'twill do you good.

And you will eat in the sweet bye and bye.

The "Portland County Jail" is one of the few
songs of the road that does not wear out.

I'm a stranger in your city,

My name is Paddy Flynn;
I got drunk the other evening.

And the coppers run me in.

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

211

I had no money to pay my fine,

No friends to go my bail,
So I got soaked for ninety days

In the Portland County Jail.

Chorus

Oh, such a lot of devils,

The like I never saw;
Robbers, thieves, and highwaymen,

And breakers of the law.
They sang a song the whole night long,

And the curses fell like hail,
I'll bless the day they take me away

From the Portland County Jail.

The only friend that I had left.

Was Happy Sailor Jack;
He told me all the lies he knew.

And all the safes he's cracked.
He cracked them in Seattle;

He'd robbed the Western Mail;
It would freeze the blood of an honest man,

In the Portland County Jail.

HOBO VERSE IN A LIGHTER VEIN

The characteristic hobo is an optimist who sees
the humorous side of many an unpleasant or danger-
ous situation. The average seasoned "bo" with full
stomach and money in his pocket can enjoy to the
full the never-ending series of happenings on West
Madison Street. If there is nothing else, he can be
amused at the other man*s predicament. Many of
these humorous experiences have found their way into
poetry.

The hobo is ironic even in the face of death. The
following poem, by an unknown writer, caricatures
the contrast between the sentiment and the reality
of the hoboes existence.

212

THE HOBO

The Hobo's Last Lament

Beside a Western water-tank

One cold November day,
Inside an empty box-car,

A dying hobo lay;
His old pal stood beside him,

With low and drooping head.
Listening to the last words.

As the dying hobo said:

"I am going to a better land,

Where everything is bright,
Where beef-stews grow on bushes

And you sleep out every night;
And you do not have to work at all.

And never change your socks.
And streams of goodly whiskey

Come trickling down the rocks.

"Tell the bunch around Market street.

That my face, no more, they'll view;
Tell them I've caught a fast freight,

And that I'm going straight on through.
Tell them not to weep for me.

No tears in their eyes must lurk;
For I'm going to a better land,

Where they hate the word called work.

"Hark! I hear her whisthng,

I must catch her on the fly;
I would like one scoop of beer

Once more before I die."
The hobo stopped, his head fell back,

He'd sung his last refrain;
His old pal stole his coat and hat

And caught an East-bound train.'

A. W. Dragstedt, a prominent personality in
Chicago's Hobohemia, is a man who goes and comes

' Hobo NewSy June, 191 7.

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

213

when he pleases. According to hobo custom, he goes
to the country each summer, but he usually spends
his leisure in town. He is an optimist. The follow-
ing two verses were written at a time when he was
down but not downhearted.

It takes a very little for me to be happy;

The world has a smile for each day that goes by;
My diet of coffee and doughnuts so snappy,

Makes me very clever and mentally spry.

My shoes are but uppers, pants full of patches;

My stomach feels pleased when I fill it with soup;
When sleepy and tired my slumber I snatches.

In haystacks and hallways; sometimes in the coop.

"No Matter Where You Go" is a humorous
presentation of the futility of wandering. Where to
go next when the hobo wants to move is always a
problem. Usually the "bo" gives an unfavorable
report of the district he has just left.

Things are dull in San Francisco,

"On the bum" in New Orleans;
"Rawther punk" in cultured Boston,

Famed for codfish, pork, and beans.
"On the hog" in Kansas City;

Out in Denver things are jarred;
And they're "beefing" in Chicago

That the times are rather hard.

Not much doing in St. Louis;

It's the same in Baltimore;
Coin don't rattle in Seattle

As it did in days of yore.
Jobs are scarce around Atlanta

All through Texas it is still.
And there's very little stirring

In the town of Louisville.

214

THE HOBO

There's a howl from Cincinnati,

New York City, Brooklyn too;
In Milwaukee's foamy limits

There is little work to do.
In the face of all such rumors.

It seems not amiss to say
That no matter where you're going

You had better stay away.

' POETRY AND HOBO SOLIDARITY

In song and ballad the hobo expresses life as he
feels and sees it. Through poetry he creates a back-
ground of tradition and culture which unifies and gives
significance to all his experiences. His ballads of
the road and his battle songs of protest induce a
unanimity of sentiment and attitudes, the strongest
form of group solidarity in the hobo world.

Through the universal language of poetry the
homeless man bridges the chasm of isolation that
separates him from his fellows. In song and ballad
he communicates his memories and his hopes to men
everywhere who, fascinated by his experiences, per-
ceive in them only a different expression of the human
wishes of every person.

CHAPTER XV

THE SOAP BOX AND THE OPEN FORUM

"TRILLING time'' is a problem with the homeless
man. The movie and the burlesque are the
only forms of commercialized amusements within
the range of his purse. Even these are only patron-
ized infrequently and by a few. For the vast
majority there is no pastime save the passing show
of the crowded thoroughfare. Most of them spend
their leisure time shuffling along the street reading
the menu cards in the cheap restaurants, or in other
forms of "window shopping." Sometimes they stray
out of the "stem" into the Loop. Perhaps they
will go to the parks and lie on the grass, or to the
lake front where they may sit down and look out on
the water.

The homeless man, as he meanders along the
street, is looking for something to break the monot-
ony. He will stand on the curb for hours, watching
people pass. He notices every conspicuous person
and follows with interest, perhaps sometimes with
envy, the wavering movements of every passing
drunk. If a policeman stops anyone on the street,
he also stops and listens in. If he notices a man
running into an alley his curiosity is aroused.
Wherever he sees a group gathered, he lingers. He
will stop to listen if two men are arguing. He will
spend hours sitting on the curb talking with a
congenial companion.

During the summer, time hangs heavier on the
hobo's hands than in winter. In cold weather, he
is usually hard pressed to find food and shelter. If
the inclement weather overtakes him without funds

[215

216

THE HOBO

and jobless, and this is generally the case, he is
absorbed with the problem of "getting by." He is
driven to his wits' end to find a warm place to sleep
at night and a comfortable place to loaf during the
day. It oftens takes a whole day's scouting to
find a place to sleep at night and food enough to
appease his gnawing and growling stomach.

There are homeless men who have time on their
hands even in winter. They are those who have
the rare ability to save enough in summer to live
in winter. The parks are no longer inviting. The
soap-box orators have either gone out of business or
are forced indoors. The hobo follows them and,
where he can afford it, helps to support them inside
much as he did in the open. He spends more time
in the movies and burlesques and will sit for half a
day at times watching one show.

Listening to speeches is a popular pastime in
Hobohemia. Nothing, unless it is reading, occupies
so much of the homeless man's leisure time.

STREET SPEAKING IN HOBOHEMIA

pobohemia knows but two types of speakers —
the soap-box orator and the evangelist. The evange-
list has been longer on the job. Religious speakers
are usually associated with established organizations,
or they represent mission groups of which there are
many varieties on the "stem." There are evange-
lists who adhere to no faith or creed. They are
"free lances," as most hobo speakers are, only their
message is a religious one. Few of these latter take
contributions, and seldom do they essay to make con-
verts in the sense of having a following. They are
enthusiasts driven into the streets with the irresistible

AN Ol'TDOOR MISSION MEfc:TING

THE RF.LIGIOUS PLEA

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

217

urgency of their message. In Hobohemia, where
time hangs heavy on the hoboes hands, there is an
audience for every message.

In a later chapter' the role of the evangelist
in the life of Hobohemia is considered; here we are
interested in the soap-box orators whose message is
secular rather than other-worldly. The man on the
soap box is a reformer or a revolutionist, seeking to
change conditions. The missionary, on the other
hand, is seeking less to change conditions than to
change mankind. This is the basis of the conflict
between their rival doctrines. The soap-boxers may
contend with each other concerning what is best for
the down-and-out in the here and now, but they are
unanimous in their opposition to the "sky pilots"
and the "mission squawkers." They maintain that
it is more important to enjoy life here than to live
on the prospect of joy hereafter. They have lost
patience with the preacher because he only promises
"pie in the sky when you die," and they want the
pie now.

The men and women who bring religion to the
tramp in Hobohemia have taken root in the life of the
"stem." Their street singing, their preaching and
praying, although little heeded by the hobo, would
be greatly missed if absent. But the missionary,
transplanted from another area of life, remains more
or less of an alien. The soap-box reformer is no less
of an institution and he is, moreover, native to the
soil. He is closer to the actual life and mundane
interests of the homeless man. He stands on the
curbstone and publishes his opinions on the great
questions of the day in a positive and convincing

^ Chapter xvii, "Missions and Welfare Organizations."

218

THE HOBO

manner, and his ideas are generally couched in lan-
guage that the man on the street can understand.
The hobo's intellectual interests revolve about the
problem of labor. The soap-box orator is the hobo's
principal source of information on this topic.

Soap-boxers are "free lances'* most of the time.
Either they are out of harmony with all organiza-
tions or no organization has been willing to adopt
them. Those who make street speaking a profession
are a great deal like the ancient sophists. They are
able to plead one cause today and a different cause
/ tomorrow. Their allegiance is to be had by any
group that can make the proper bid. With some of
them the inducement must be a financial one, while
others are interested only in ideas. If the idea
attracts them they will take up the new angle of the
subject with the same enthusiasm that they did the
old. In this respect they are influenced by public
opinion. They love to harangue the crowds but they
like to have the crowd on their side.

EDUCATING THE PROLETARIAT

Soap-boxers usually take themselves seriously,
though their audiences do not always do so. They
take themselves seriously in spite of their frequent
and often abrupt changes in positions on the issues
they discuss. They are usually made to explain
these changes, and these explanations, if not always
logical, are usually sincere. They invariably give
their best thoughts on the subject they discuss.
Whatever they have gleaned from the available
sources they are striving to express in language that
is live and understandable to the man on the street.
These efforts to clear the issues, to spread propaganda

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

219

or whatever it may be called, is termed by the soap-
boxers, "education."

Not all the "stem" intellectuals who assume the
burden of educating the proletariat use the soap
box. Many of them wield the pen. The latter are,
in the main, free-lance writers, and most of their
productions are tinctured with "red." But they
are generally able to catch the ear of the down-and-
out, whether he is a hobo or not. The writings of
these cloistered radicals, who are striving to bring
the chaotic proletariat to a unity of the faith, provide
the soap-box pulpiteer with facts and ideas which
he interprets and passes on to his curbstone audience
in the shape of poems, songs, articles, and essays.
The writers provide, for them, an abundance of
material out of which the orators build their castles.
Most of these literary radicals are optimistic about
the success of their efforts to "get the worker's mind
right," and thus prepare him for the new order.
The masses must be educated, but the soap-boxer,
whose burden it is, must himself be educated, and
that is the job of the writer who works behind the
scenes.

Just how much education the Hobohemian pro-
letariat gets from this speaking and reading is not
easily estimated. They learn something about the
class struggle, industrial organization, and politics.
Sometimes an observation on science or literature
or art will fall from a speaker's lips, but most of
these observations are new only to the stranger in
the class. The old-timer, however, hears only old
ideas restated; or, at best, new facts and figures
interpreted to support old ideas. It is like a game
with a limited number of pieces and a limited number

220

THE HOBO

of moves. Sometimes, to be sure, a speaker
endeavors to serve "science*' to the "floating frater-
nity." Lectures on biology, psychology, sociology,
or economics may be heard any evening or holiday
during the summer. Most of these lectures go over
the heads of the audience, and it is questionable
whether the speakers have sufficient background to
speak intelligently of the sciences they are attempting
to expound.

This effort to educate the proletariat is, never-
theless, not altogether without results. It gives
men something to occupy their minds. It gives them
some understanding of their common interests;
creates a certain amount of solidarity and, perhaps,
best of all, "kills time." Some speakers realize this
and declare that the soap box is primarily a kind of
entertainment. One man makes it a point to try
to amuse his crowd as well as to "instruct" them.
"YouVe got to keep *em interested. You have to
amuse them and make 'em laugh before you can get
any ideas into their heads. Whenever things get
dry, I leave an opening for a drunk or someone to
ask me a question or crack a joke, and interest picks
up again."

An Afternoon Series of Soap-Box Orations

60. During a Sunday in July, 1922, no less than twenty men
spoke on the box at the corner of Jefferson and Madison streets;
and as many topics were treated. In the afternoon the following
speakers shared the time:

I. The meeting was opened by a man who borrowed a box
from a nearby fruit stand. He tried to get another man to
speak first so that he would not have to hurt his voice gathering
the crowd, but no one cared to start. He talked for twenty
minutes about graft in the patent-medicine trade. He had a very
catchy speech well tempered with humor and he gathered a big

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

221

crowd. Evidently he had made a study of the patent-medicine
business and his speech was an "exposure" of the game. He
finished by selhng some pamphlets dealing with the subject.

2. The second speaker was an I.W.W. who talked for fifteen
minutes on education. He was a good talker and held the crowd.
He wound up by selling some I.W.W. literature and periodicals
in which the thoughts of economists had been reduced from the
difficult academic language to the understanding of the man on
the street. He also passed out some literature, i.e., old issues
of the Solidarity, and I.W.W. papers.

3. Another I.W.W. talked twenty minutes on organization.
He argued that the rich man organizes and for that reason is
successful. He does not want the poor man at the bottom to
organize because he fears that he will not be able to keep him
at the bottom. He didn't blame the rich man for organizing;
he blamed the poor man for not organizing. He gave some
literature away and sold some.

4. A speech on superstition followed. It lasted twenty
minutes and was aimed at a mission group that was holding a
meeting across the street. The argument was that the Bible and
the church were the most powerful instruments in the hands of rich
men for keeping the poor man down. No collection was taken.

5. A twenty-minute speech on the economic organization of
industry was given by a man who took great pains to remind the
crowd that he had spent seven years to learn all about it. He
made a plea for the co-operation of labor to combat the organi-
zation of capital. No collection was taken.

6. The next man argued that the unemployment problem is
caused by two things; the overcrowding of population and the
concentration of wealth into the hands of a few. Eighty-five
per cent of the people had but 15 per cent of the wealth and 15
per cent of the people had 85 per cent of the wealth or more than
they could possibly consume. This man usually takes up a
collection on the ground that he is handicapped physically, but
he did not on this occasion. He spoke for twenty minutes.

7. No more speakers wanted the box so a drunk got on the
stand and asked for the attention of the crowd. He furnished
amusement for fifteen minutes. He was witty but easily led
from subject to subject.

No speaker talked long enough to bore the crowd. Each
speaker, when he had finished, yielded the box to his successor.

222

THE HOBO

The crowd was a characteristic Hobohemian gathering, willing
to stand so long as they could be interested. Like most such
gatherings, it kept diminishing and increasing in size. Some
would stand in front and listen for an hour while others would
only stop a few minutes on the outer edge of the gathering. The
reaction to the speakers was for the most part sympathetic.
Occasionally a man on the sidelines would be seen to frown
disapproval but it is the habit of those who are not interested
to worm their way out of the group and go their way.

While the sixth speaker of the above list was talking the
crowd was attracted to the side by a discussion between one of
the previous speakers and another man. The argument attracted
so many listeners that the speaker was irritated and he called to
one of the men engaged in the discussion, "Say B — , do you
think that's a square deal "Sorry C — , I didn't know we were
disturbing you." The crowd on the side dispersed and gathered
around the speaker on the box.

SOAP-BOX ETHICS AND TACTICS

Just as there are certain unwritten laws that are
found in the jungle camps, so there are unwritten
laws that the soap-boxer observes. Regardless of
how much they differ in their schemes, they are
seldom personal in their opposition to one another.
Soap-boxers behave toward one another when not on
the box much as lawyers do when they are out of the
courtroom, and even while on the box they consider
one another's interests. For example, a speaker
in resigning the rostrum to his successor will fre-
quently close with some such statement as this:
"Fd like to talk longer on this subject but there are
other speakers here and they have something to say
that you might like to hear."

The practice of taking up personal collections is
looked down upon by most curbstone speakers.
They feel that the soap box should not be exploited.
Collections are not always approved by the audiences.

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

223

Some men label their speeches "lectures'' and "pass
the hat" on the ground that they have spent years
in getting the information. When they "perform
the hat trick on the ^simpoleons' [simpletons]" they
regard it as a compensation for the role they play as
educators. They chew fine the complex intellectual
food so that it may be taken up by the untrained
and unlearned. But unpopular as is the practice
of collecting money, it is not a barrier. The audience
is exceedingly tolerant toward the hat-passer and
more so if he has a good "line" of talk, or if he is
handicapped.

Most men who talk to Hobohemian crowds make
their living by selling some kind of literature. Some-
times they sell pamphlets they have written them-
selves, or they sell pamphlets or periodicals on a
commission. Getting money in this way is not
unpopular among the soap-boxers. It is a practice
that is rather favored, for it is the best way of getting
the down-and-out to thinking, and if the soap-box
orators are united on any one thing it is this: that
the proletariat must be educated.

One of the favorite methods of distributing litera-
ture is to sell it from the box. Enthusiastic persons
in the crowd often buy a paper and pay for several
others to be distributed from the box. Sometimes
a man will take the stand and dispose of a hundred
papers or pamphlets in a few moments by persuading
those who have money to buy for those who have none.

A man who entertains the "slum proletariat"
need not be without status because he lives by street
speaking. Most of them either directly or indirectly
earn their living in this way, though many of them
would not admit it. If a man can plead the cause

224

THE HOBO

of the under dog to the satisfaction of the man on
the street, if he has a philosophy that pleases the
crowd, and if he can present it in an attractive
manner, very few resent his passing the hat.

So with all their contentiousness the soap-box
orators manage to keep on speaking terms, and rather
informally turn favors to one another. Seldom do
they "knock" one another, and seldom do they
crowd one another away from a corner or place one
another in embarrassing positions. In this they have
gone farther toward reaching a unity of purpose than
the various mission groups who compete on opposite
corners for the same crowds.

It must not be thought that soap-boxing is a game
that is without its tricks. There are tricks for
getting the crowds, tricks of holding the crowds, and
tricks for exploiting the crowds. Speakers do not
like to be the first one up on the box, nor do they like
to be the last one up when the crowd has become tired.
If a man wants to pass the hat, it is to his advantage
to get the first chance at the crowd. Men will do
considerable jockeying to get on the box just when
they think it will be to their advantage.

FREE-LANCE VERSATILITY

Street speakers who stand before the same audi-
ences one or more times a week throughout the
year tend to wear out. Some of them are resourceful
enough to find something new to say, but others
find it difficult to say old things in a new way, so
they are likely to fall into the habit of repeating
themselves. Sometimes they try to keep from grow-
ing stale by speaking in as many places as possible,
but since their audiences are limited to the Hobo-

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

225

hemian population they are always talking to a
number who have heard them say the same things
before. After a speaker has made the rounds of all
the corners he is forced to get a new "line."

Some men, however, persist in delivering old
thread-bare messages in their old, well-worn way.
The speeches of some men are so well known that]
the only interest is one of curiosity. The crowd'
listens to see if anything was left out. The hobby
of one free-lance speaker is Henry George and the
Single Tax. To the crowd he is the and P"
man, because he usually ends his speeches by selling
copies of Progress and Poverty at "cost." Everyone
who has been in town long enough to become
acquainted with the principal soap-boxers is familiar
with this man's "line," but usually he hears him again,
partly, perhaps, because of his apparent sincerity.

Most soap-boxers, when they find themselves
growing stale, are able to change. B's hobby for
a long time has been a speech on birth control,
which he followed by selling some books on sex, but
he wore this subject out and recently changed to a
speech on superstition at the close of which he sells
literature of an anti-religious nature. Another
speaker whose speech on patent medicine and quack
doctors finally lost its novelty is now talking on
birth control. Another has gone from trade union-
ism to the Ku Klux Klan. An old-timer on Madison
Street said of a certain speaker: "That man used
to be with the I.W.W.; then he went over to How's
organization and now he's free lancing." "What is
his line now?" is a question that is commonly
asked in regard to a soap-box pulpiteer. They are
expected to change.

226

THE HOBO

In search of variety and for financial reasons,
free lancers of ability hire out as campaigners for the
political parties. "Where is John L. now?" asks
one man. "Oh, he's up in Wisconsin campaigning
for Senator LaFollette. Last month he was in
Missouri stumping for Senator Reed." John carried
credentials from both the Democrats and Republi-
cans and he can plead the cause of either.

The role of the soap-boxer, like that of the ancient
sophist, is that of instructor or entertainer. Men
go in search of these curbstone gatherings. On
Sundays and holidays the crowd expects them.
Homeless men who have a job in the city during the
week spend the Sunday on the "stem" partly in
order to hear the evangelists and soap-boxers. It
is their life. They like to see old friends on the street,
but they like especially to see familiar faces on the
box.

THE OPEN FORUM

The open forum is a place, usually indoors, where
persons may gather in formal meeting to discuss
topics of interest. It is usually a winter retreat for
the soap-boxers and their followers. In order to
maintain a forum it is necessary to hire a hall and
govern themselves by some sort of organization.
The "Hobo College" is probably the most con-
spicuous open forum in Chicago. It is but a branch
of a chain of "colleges" that are maintained in the
larger cities of the country by the wealth of James
Eads How, the "millionaire hobo." It has oper-
ated in Chicago nearly every winter since 1907.
Scarcely a soap-boxer in Chicago has not at some
time been associated with this institution. Many
of them at some time have either been officers or

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

227

leading lights of the "college/* The I.W.W. generally
maintains a hall where a forum is conducted during
the winter, though it does not offer the variety of
discussion and subjects that the "college" does.

The forum is far from being a harmonious nestling
ground for hibernating soap-boxers. It is rather a
veritable battle ground of contending factions.
These advocates of the "new society" who agree and
disagree so smilingly in the open often become caustic
and bitter in their attacks when forced to share the
same hall. There close association generates factions
and cliques. There are always the "ins" and the
"outs." New leaders are ever getting the chair,
and old policies are constantly replaced. The
"Hobo College" for the winter of 1922-23 had no
less than six secretaries in as many months and three
complete "house cleanings."

The order of procedure at the "Hobo College"
is practically the same as in most of the open forums.
Meetings are held on the afternoons or evenings at
set dates, or there is a regular program of a certain
number of meetings a week. On Sunday two
meetings are often held. Meetings and programs
are advertised in conspicuous places. The meetings
are so arranged that there is time at the end of the
principal speech for criticism, remarks, or questions
from the floor, after which the speaker has an oppor-
tunity to defend himself. If distinguished visitors
are present, they are usually called upon. Meetings
at the "Hobo College" are different from most
forums in that they usually terminate with a lunch.

The open forum has some advantages over the
street meetings. The group is more select and less
transient. A subject for discussion is viewed from

228

THE HOBO

various angles by different speakers who have come
at least partially prepared. On the soap box the
problem of disciplining the crowd is left entirely to
the speaker. Once he loses their interest they either
harass him or desert him. In the forum the audience
is honor bound to remain until the speaker has
finished. In the open forum speakers may be invited
who are supposed to lend a certain distinction to the
occasion. No one can lend distinction to a soap box.
Not the least advantage of the forum over the soap
box is that most of the audience can participate in the
meeting. The disadvantage is that it is not so
accessible and hence becomes exclusive.

The question is often asked, "How do soap-
boxers get initiated into the game of outdoor speak-
ing?" For most of them the answer is, "In the
open forum." In the open forum the beginners, the
aspirants, learn to take part in the discussions.
They learn here to find words to express themselves.
In the forum they take sides and learn to defend
or oppose propositions, and they learn to order and
present their thoughts.

The forum has been described as a refuge for
the hibernating soap-boxer. It is more than a
refuge; it is a study center. It is to the free-lance
speaker what a summer school is to the teacher;
an opportunity to relax and "polish up."

THE SOAP BOX AND HOBO OPINION

Soap-boxers all say that they have enjoyed more
liberty in Chicago than in most cities. Chicago
police have always taken a generous and liberal
attitude toward the curbstone forum. A man who
has been prominent in several free-speech fights says:

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

The free-lance speaker is a great help to the police in this
town. It's easier to handle these crowds when they have some-
one to listen to. When a man gets restless, it gives him some-
thing to think about. If you don't believe it just go into a town
where the soap-boxer is suppressed and see how bitter the "bos"
are.

The role of the soap-boxer is to make hobos
think. He succeeds to a greater extent in this than
we reahze. In his efforts to hold his audience for
half an hour he throws off a great many ideas. Much
of this ammunition is fired in the air, but not all of
it. What he actually does is to keep the minds of
his hearers on objective things. Otherwise their
thoughts would turn inward, and for the homeless
man introspection is not a pleasant pastime.

It is probably true that the soap-box orator
makes no permanent impression on his audience.
He does, to be sure, give voice to some ill-defined
sentiments in which all are agreed. But no practical
unanimity is ever achieved. This agitation starts
no mass movement. There has never been an effec-
tive permanent organization among hobos. The
very nature of the hobo mind resents every kind of
discipline that any form of organization would
impose. He is by circumstance, tradition, and
temperament an individualist.

What of the soap-box reformer and revolutionist ?
Is he a menace or merely a joke ? The curbstone
orator is not an agitator in the ordinary sense of that
word. He is merely a thinking hobo. In him the
homeless man becomes articulate. It is something to
these outcast men to hear in these curbstone forums
the reverberations of their own unuttered thoughts.
It is something to the homeless man merely to have
a voice.

CHAPTER XVI

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL HOBO ORGANIZATION

/ 'T^HE hobo is an individualistic person. Not even
JL the actors and artists can boast a higher propor-
tion of egocentrics. They are the modern Ishmaels
who refuse to fit into the routine of conventional
social life. Resenting every sort of social discipHne,
they have "cut loose" from organized society.

For them there is only the open road which offers
an existence without discipline, without organization,
without control. To the restless and dissatisfied the
life of a vagabondage is a challenge, the most elemen-
tary way by which men seek to escape from reality.

Out of this unrest, efforts have arisen through
which the hobo has striven to materialize his dreams.
Among the organizations initiated or promoted by
migrants are the Industrial Workers of the World
(I.W.W.), the International Brotherhood Welfare
Association (I.B.W.A.), the Migratory Workers'
Union (M.W.U.), the United Brotherhood ot Ameri-
can Laborers, and the Ramblers.

s INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD

j The I.W.W. was formed in Chicago in July, 1905.
Its headquarters are here and its conventions have
almost invariably been held here. Chicago has been
favored by the migratory radicals because it is a
transportation center, and because of its tolerant
attitude toward street speakers.

Theoretically, the I.W.W. is an organization of
all industrial workers, but it has been most enthusi-
astically supported, however, by the hobos. It was
conceived in the "stem," and cradled and nurtured

230]

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

231

by the floating workers. The hobo has always been
identified with it and, in the West, has played a mili-
tant role in fighting its battles.

"The backwardness and unprogressiveness of
trade unions as organized in the American Federation
of Labor, and the impotency of trade union as organ-
ized in the American Federation of Labor, and the
impotency of political socialism to safeguard the
ballot and provide the organs necessary to carry on
production in the future society," are the reasons, on
paper at least, for the existence of the LW.W. It is
an effort to organize the workers along industrial
lines, that is, to substitute, for trade unions, industrial
unions for all the workers in one industry. All
the industrial unions, metal-workers, construction-
workers, seamen, agricultural- workers, it seeks to
combine into one mammoth organization called the
"One Big Union."

The structure of the LW.W. is simple. The unit
is the industrial local, which is composed of all the
workers of an industry in a locality. The various
locals of an industry combine to form an industrial
department. The departments join together to form
the "One Big Union." The organization is managed
by a general secretary who is virtually the executive
head. The general secretary-treasurer is assisted
by an executive board elected by the six unions hav-
ing the largest membership. A seventh member is
elected by the other smaller unions.

Some of the "wobbly" spokesmen boast of 100,000
members, but that is an overestimate. The mem-
bership is fluctuating and rises and falls with the
seasons, but perhaps it has reached 100,000 at times.
The membership is "on the road" most of the time,

232

THE HOBO

and even the locals are migratory, so that definite
figures are not always at hand. The dues are fifty
cents a month, so that many loyal members are not
always in good standing. The members in good
standing represent probably but a third or a fourth
of the men who designate themselves I.W.W/s.^

When certain seasonal occupations begin, as the
harvest fields, the construction camps, and lumbering
camps, the organizers set to work enrolling members.
Rumors circulate that no one will be permitted to
work on certain jobs unless he carries a red card;
that the "wobblies" will throw all non-members off
freight trains; that all the other workers are taking
out membership cards; that the employers of a
certain district are going to cut the wages of transient
labor, or that in other localities the wages are good
because the I.W.W. will not permit anyone without
a red card to work.

The I.W.W. as an organization does not officially
sanction methods of intimidation, and will take action
against any cases brought to its attention. How-
ever, force and fear get members. Men who are
seeking work in a community on jobs over which the
''wobblies'* have assumed control will take out
cards to avoid conflict. Men will join the organiza-
tion to facihtate "riding the rods." Memberships for
convenience only are short lived, seldom enduring over
the summer.

APPEAL OF THE I.W.W.

The I.W.W. does not depend wholly on fear to
win its members. The great appeal of the I.W.W.,

^ According to the financial statement for the I.W.W, for May and June
of 1922, there were in good standing 18,234 members. This, it must be remem-
bered, was just before the summer membership drive, which is said to have
recruited over 18,000 additional members.

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

233

as of all other radical organizations, is to the spirit
of unrest that is a part of every hobo*s make-up.
The I.W.W. program offers a ray of hope to the man
who is down and out. Why the "wobbly" creed
makes so stirring an appeal to the hobo may be best
understood by quoting the preamble of its con-
stitution:

The working class and the employing class have nothing in
common. There can be no peace as long as hunger and want are
found among millions of the working people and the few, who
make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.

Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the
workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the
earth and machinery of production, and abolish the wage
system.

We find that the centering of the management of industries
into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to
cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The
trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of
workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same
industry, thereby helping to defeat one another in wage wars.
Moreover the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead
the workers into the belief that the working class have interests
in common with their employers.

These conditions can be changed and the interest of the work-
ing class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way
that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries if
necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any
department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury
to all.

Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair day's wage for
a fair day's work," we must inscribe on our banner the revolu-
tionary watchword, "Abolition of the wage system."

It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with
capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not
only for the everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry
on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown.
By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the
new society within the shell of the old.

234

THE HOBO

The hobo, dissatisfied with things as they are, has
no time to wait for the slow-moving processes of
evolution. The preamble appeals to him because
it is anti-evolutionary; it preaches the gospel of
struggle and revolt. It is opposed to compromise
and reconciliation, and affirms that the fight must
go on as long as there is an employing class. No
man, down-and-out, can hear this doctrine without
a thrill. The declaration that no quarter shall be
given to the capitalist is music to his ears.

Every member of the I.W.W. is expected to be an
agitator. Wherever he goes it is the mission of the
"wobbly" to sow seeds of discontent and to harass
the employer. Certain members go from job to job
as "investigators." They usually remain long
enough to start a disturbance among the regular
employees, and to get discharged. Agitators regard
a long list of dismissals as evidence of their success.

Official agitators make no efl^ort at organizing.
They merely "fan the flames of discontent" and pass
on. They are followed by the pioneer organizer, an
aggressive individual who starts the work of forming
a local. He is of the militant type and often gets
no farther than to arouse the men to the need of
organization. Sooner or later he also gets dis-
charged, which is to him evidence that he has "put
it over."

In the third stage of the offensive comes the real
organizer. He follows the militants and reaps what
they have sown. He works coolly and quietly in
organizing the workers. He persuades and argues,
but not in the open. The employer only learns of
his presence when he has won over the men and is
ready^to make a demand.

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

235

Chicago's attitude to i.w.w.

The I.W.W. is little understood by society in
general. The public believes that it is an organiza-
tion of "tramps who won't work," and that the
initials stand for "I Won't Work/' or "I Want-*-
Whiskey." It is true that many "wobblies" do
want whiskey and many do not want work, but the
organization is neither pro-whiskey nor anti-work.
During the war the opposition to the organization
was intense, and Chicago was a center of arrests and
prosecutions. At present, however, the I.W.W. in
Chicago enjoys a freedom for its activities not found
in many other cities.

There are two reasons for this tolerant attitude.
In the first place. West Madison Street, where the
I.W.W. is most active, is virtually isolated from
other parts of the city. It is hemmed in on the
north and south by factories, and on the east by the
river. Then, too, Chicago is situated far from the
battle grounds of the organization. The "wobblies"
wage a yearly war, but it is with the farmers in the
harvest belt, the lumber barons of the northwest, the
contractors, the mine operators; but all these are
remote from Chicago. If Chicago serves any part
in this warfare it is the role of a winter training camp
where the tactics of the summer campaign are worked
out.

international brotherhood welfare
association

Next in importance to the I.W.W. is the hobo
organization known as the International Brother-
hood Welfare Association, or the I.B.W.A. Like
the I.W.W. it started in 1905, but its membership

236

THE HOBO

at no time has exceeded 5,000. The I.B.W.A.,
Hke the I.W.W., looks forward to a new social order,
a society in which there will be no classes. But where
the I.W.W. proposes to use force and direct action or
industrial organization to accomplish its purposes,
the I.B.W.A. would use education. The I.B.W.A.
stresses welfare work, brotherhood, and co-operation
among the hobos. It aims to organize and educate
the unorganized and uneducated homeless and mi-
gratory workers.

The I.B.W.A. is largely the creation of James
Eads How, a member of a wealthy St. Louis family.
How, dissatisfied with the ease and comfort of a rich
man's life, left home and drifted into the group of
hobos and tramps. Becoming interested in their
problems, he set to work to better their condition.
He conceived the idea of a great international hobo
organization and converted several hobo soap-
boxers" to his cause. The program of the I.B.W.A.
is set forth in Article III of the constitution:

A. To bring together the unorganized workers.

B. To co-operate with persons and organizations who desire
to better social conditions.

C. To utilize unused land and machinery in order to provide
work for the unemployed.

D. To furnish medical, legal and other aid to its members.

E. To organize the unorganized and assist them in obtain-
ing work at remunerative wages and transportation when re-
quired.

F. To educate the public mind to the right of collective
ownership in production and distribution.

G. To bring about the scientific, industrial, intellectual,
moral and spiritual development of the masses.

Another section of the constitution states that
the organization aims to "unite the migratory

JAMES EADS HOW

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

237

workers, the Disemployed and the unorganized
workers of both sexes for mutual betterment and
development, with the final object of abolishing
poverty and introducing a classless society."

"hobo college"

The most important of the auxiliary institutions
of the I.B.W.A. is the "Hobo College." This unique
institution is How's idea. How, as a strong believer
in progress through education, desires to bring to the
hobo worker the rudiments of the natural and social
sciences. The "Hobo College" affords the migrant
an opportunity to discuss topics of practical and
vital interest to him, and to attend lectures by
professors, preachers, and free-lance intellectuals.

The "Hobo College" in Chicago^ has received
considerable newspaper publicity. Like all the hobo
colleges, the Chicago branch only operates in winter.
During the summer most of the "students" are out
of town at work on different migratory occupations.

HOLDING COMMITTEE

How's income, which he inherited, is at the disposal
of the hobos, but it is "fed out" by degrees, according
to the terms of the will. As the money comes into
How's hands it is distributed and apportioned by
the Holding Committee, which is composed of a
member of the How family, a member of the "Hobo
College," a member of the Junior League (a non-

'The Chicago branch of the "Hobo College" is located at present (1922-23)
at 913 West Washington Boulevard. It has taken the name temporarily of
"Brotherhood College," because the owners of the property would not rent the
hall so long as the word "hobo" was connected with the movement. The
change was made rather reluctantly. The second and third floors are in use;
the second floor for reading-room and kitchen, the third floor is a lecture-hall.

238

THE HOBO

functioning organization for boy tramps), and the
acting secretary and all previous secretaries of the
I.B.W.A. Most of this money goes to the support
of the various organizations of the I.B.W.A., includ-
ing the Hobo News.

The Holding Committee also may contribute at
times to the purchase of halls and other property,
to transport delegates to and from conventions, or
rather to pay their fare back after they have "beaten
their way" to the meeting, and to promote propa-
ganda. A plan is now on foot to maintain a lobby
at Washington to support legislation in behalf of the
hobo. One proposal is a federal labor exchange.
The Holding Committee may and often does contrib-
ute to other causes.

CO-OPERATIVE " FLOPS "

One of How's ambitions is to establish hobo
stopping places in all the principal cities of the
country. Already he has opened "Hotels de Bum"
in more than twenty cities. Some of them are
owned by the I.B.W.A., but most of them only
rented for the winter months. The "hotel" in
Cincinnati is typical. It is a two-story frame
building, located in the Hobohemian section of the
city. The second floor, designed for "flopping," is
equipped with about forty cots. The first floor is
divided into a loafing- or reading-room and a kitchen.
In the kitchen there are a gas range and enough
pots and kettles to "boil up" clothes or cook a "mulli-
gan." At the rear of the building is a small wood
yard where ties and other wood are cut for the heater.
The management of these hotels is left to the men
who select a house committee from their number.

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

239

The committee looks after the building and insists
that the men keep the place clean. A small tax is
imposed now and then to meet current expenses and
to pay one man a small fee for looking after the
accounts. The ordinary "mission stiff" cannot sur-
vive long in an I.B.W.A. hotel. He usually leaves
when asked to contribute his share toward the up-
keep. But a man without money is welcome, if
he does his part. Some of these hotels pay their
way. Most of them, however, never meet expenses,
but the deficit generally is made good by How.

ROLE PLAYED BY HOW

Whatever the future of the I.B.W.A., at present
it is almost a one-man organization. Regardless of
the ideals How entertains about democracy, he
really controls the I.B.W.A. He does all this because
he holds the purse. The I.B.W.A., with all its auxilia-
ries, are dependent in the last analysis upon the funds
of Dr. How. None of these institutions is self-
supporting. The membership fees are not sufficient
in many cases to cover the running expenses. The
Chicago branch of the "Hobo College," for instance,
has been one of the most active in the country, but
it has never paid its way. How does not take advan-
tage of the fact that his money maintains the institu-
tion. He does not have as much to say about the
disposition of funds as certain other members of the
Holding Committee, but his right to impose his will
upon the organization is ever present with the
leaders.

How has been persuaded at times to withhold
funds from certain locals thought to be radical. He
fears the I.W.W. who sometimes crowd into a local

240

THE HOBO

group and outvote the non-I.W.W. In such cases,
How's money is used to spread their propaganda.
The initiation fee of the I.B.W.A. is so small (ten cents
and ten cents a month dues) that a large number of
men may be enrolled for a few dollars. When the
I.W.W. recently lost one of their halls in Chicago,
they tried to work their way into the I.B.W.A., but
the plot was found out and the books for the time
being were closed. When How cuts off the rent
allowance to a local it soon closes its doors.

The fact that the I.B.W.A. is virtually How's
organization has had interesting effects on the
behavior of the members. Certain officials compete
with one another to get into his good graces. Others
take a stand in bitter opposition to him. There is
always jealousy between those "who sit on the right
hand and those who sit on the left hand." Individu-
als in the various locals with a grievance write di-
rectly to How. Complaints go to him more often
than to general headquarters.

^ MIGRATORY WORKERS* UNION

The Migratory Workers' Union, or the M.W.U.,
composed wholly of hobos, was organized within the
I.B.W.A. in 191 8. Some of the leaders of the
I.B.W.A. felt that the older organization was neglect-
ing the interests of the migratory worker. They
charged that it was too much concerned with welfare
work and too little with the organization of the
workers. They converted How to the idea of a
migratory workers' union and he contributed to its
establishment.

The originators of the M.W.U. had other ends in
mind. They wanted to organize a powerful group

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

241

of workers within the I.B.W.A. that would be able
to dominate the conventions and bring pressure to
bear on How. They hoped that the M.W.U. would
grow to such proportions that How would fear it,
and that he would not dare to use it as a "play-
thing." Secondly, the M.W.U. was a scheme to
get funds independently of the How allowance.
Thirdly, the originators planned to organize the
workers along industrial lines more effectively than
had the I.W.W., which at the time was unpopular
on account of its opposition to the war. Fourthly,
the M.W.U., starting with a "clean slate" and a less
radical program than the I.W.W., might attract the
more moderate of its members who had lost faith in
the revolutionary movement. The thought of win-
ning over the lukewarm members of the I.W.W. was
probably the argument that appealed to How.

The "Aims and Objects" of the organization con-
tain a decidedly less radical program than the
preamble to the I.W.W. constitution.

1. A national agitation against the unconstitutional laws as
they affect the migratory worker.

2. Federal inspection of all construction camps by the United
States PubHc Health Service.

3. To work in favor of the abolition of the chain-gang system
and all prison contract labor.

4. Free transportation to and from the jobs for all migratory
workers.

5. The abolition of privately owned employment agencies.

6. A shorter work day.

The M.W.U. has not been active in Chicago,
though one of its officers has always been a Chicago
man. It^has been most active in Ohio and Indiana
but is even dying there.

242

THE HOBO

UNITED BROTHERHOOD OF AMERICAN LABORERS

Michael C. Walsh is the general secretary-
treasurer and the chief promoter of the United
Brotherhood of American Laborers. Walsh, an old
organizer for the I.W.W., is not in harmony with the
"wobblies" at present. Although at one time the
president of the "Hobo College," he has also with-
drawn from that institution.

The aim of the Brotherhood is to unite all migra-
tory and even non-migratory workers with the slogan,
"What is the concern of one is the concern of all."
Its program promises reading-rooms, picture shows,
lectures, but the chief attraction is an accident and
life insurance policy which every member takes out.

Members of the M.W.U. and the I.B.W.A. accuse
Walsh of drawing up an impractical program for
economic and legislative reform, and charge that the
" aims " of the Brotherhood were borrowed from their
organizations and only slightly modified.

BENEVOLENT AND PROTECTIVE ORDER
OF RAMBLERS

The Benevolent and Protective Order of Ramblers
is supposed to be a semi-secret organization of the
floating fraternity, but its membership is composed
of a small number of Chicago's "home guards."
It was organized by John X. Kelly and has no bene-
fits nor program except that the members agree to
help one another when in trouble. It holds meetings
(for members only) now and then, but it does not
aim to deal with any economic or social problems.
The "Ramblers" endeavors to add a human touch
to the migrant's Hfe. It is, in short, a hobo good-
fellowship club that meets where and when it is con-

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

243

venient to drink the "milk o' human kindness" and
to sing "Hail! Hail! You Ought to Be a Rambler."

HOBO CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENTS

Dissatisfied with things as they are, the hobo
experiments now and again with co-operative pro- |
jects. Most of these are attempts to do on a small
scale what the dreamers hope to accomplish in the
future on a larger, a national, or an international
scale. That co-operative organizations failed is no
discredit to the leaders nor any conclusive proof
against the value of co-operative movements as a
motive in economic life. The failure is to be ex-
plained at least in part by the egocentricity and
individualism or the irresponsibiHty of the migra-
tory workers.

Of the following five interesting cases of co-
operative projects among migratory workers, only
one took place in Chicago. The story of all of these
attempts has, however, been written by the prime
mover of them, John X. Kelly. Sooner or later all
hobo co-operative experiments end the same way.
They fail because of suspicion and lack of harmony.

6i. My first attempt to organize a co-operative scheme was
in 1909 in Redlands, California. I knew a group of men; some
of them radical and all of them idealists. It occurred to me
that they were the very types to make a communistic plan work.
I knew of a tract of land, one hundred and sixty acres, open for
settlement. Fourteen dollars to file a claim and a little addi-
tional expense and labor would have put the place in working
condition.

I presented my plan to these men and ten of them approved
the idea. They had all been soap-boxers and agitators and I
felt that here at last is a group of men who can make a co-
operative organization a success. Our scheme was very simple,

244

THE HOBO

everyone was to bear his share of the burden and to receive his
share of the profits. No matter what a man did as long as it
was part of the work of running the farm would be considered
as important as any other part. The government of the place
would be absolutely democratic. A manager would be elected
from the number and he would remain manager for a certain
term or as long as he gave satisfaction. The land was to be
divided up as follows: each man was to have a five acre plot as
his individual property and the other hundred and ten acres of
ground was to be worked co-operatively.

We had scarcely got organized when dissensions arose.
Some were satisfied with the manager but others feared him and
mistrusted him. Some declared that it was impossible to
determine how much of one kind of work was equal to another
kind of work. Some were not satisfied because they felt that
they were going to be imposed on and they would not join an
organization in which there was no assurance that they would
get a square deal. The result of this disputation was the breakup
of the movement. Each man went his way.

My second endeavor to promote a hobo co-operative move-
ment was in 1917 in St. Louis. It was in the winter time and
there were many idle men in town. I conceived what I thought
was the most modern and up to date plan ever brought into being
to promote the interests of the down-and-outs. Knowing that
the unemployed were being exploited by semi-religious and
charitable organizations who gave little in return for much work,
I set about to solve the problem in another way. Dr. James
Eads How of St. Louis, founder of the International Brotherhood
Welfare Association, contributed |2oo to be used as follows:
^100 to be spent for a horse and wagon, I50 for a gasoline engine
and a saw, while the rest was to be used to buy food until funds
could be had for the sale of wood. It was a reserve fund only
to be used in case of emergency. A saloon-keeper gave us the
use of a yard in East St. Louis free of charge. There was an
old store in connection with the yard that could also be used.
The place was in the heart of East St. Louis and accessible to
any part of the city. The American Car Repairing Company
gave us all the wood we cared to haul away. Eleven policemen
sent in orders for wood. They were willing to pay three dollars
a load for this wood sawed and split into kindling.

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

245

The conditions under which the men entered the program
were similar to the first venture. They were all to have an equal
share in the profits. The manager, the man who operated the
saw; all who worked in and around the wood yard, after expenses
were deducted, were to share alike. Everything was to be
democratic, no one was to be an exploiter, and nobody was to be
exploited. Everyone agreed and after I had remained with the
project a day or so until it got under way, I left them to work
out their own problems.

Within a week a committee of three came to me in St. Louis
with a story of confusion and a cry of being buncoed by the
manager. They said that some of the members would not work.
I sent them back to straighten out matters but conditions
seemed to get worse in so far as finances were concerned, and
within six weeks the co-operative wood yard disbanded.

A short time later I went over to East St. Louis and took the
horse and wagon and other property of the wood yard to St.
Louis where I had interested a number of the St. Louis Group of
the LB.W.A. to take a chance with the communistic scheme.
Instead of selling the wood by the load this time they were going
to sell small bundles of kindHng coated with pitch. The men
did not care this time to use the buzz saw and engine so I bought
six hand saws and six hatchets. I also bought a half barrel of
pitch into which the kindling could be dipped. I succeeded in
raising $32.00 as a jungle fund so that the boys could "get by"
while working to get a start.

A start was all that was made as the entire group got intox-
icated with "joy" with some of the jungle fund. Next morning
the secretary, who was handling the fund returned half of it with
the statement that the co-operative wood yard was a fizzle. The
man who had been elected manager died while on this drunk.

Here was a group of men that I was satisfied would make a
success of a communistic scheme if one could be put over, but
they failed miserably. Some men in both these wood yard
experiences blamed me because the schemes did not succeed.

The fourth venture was in Chicago in 1920. I tried to put
over a co-operative lodging house scheme in the "Slave Market
District" where thousands of migratory workers congregate
because of the cheap living conditions. Instead of the Scissors Bill

246

THE HOBO

class this group was made up of radicals who at some time in their
unhappy lives had taken part in some co-operative experiment.
Again I went to Dr. How with my new idea and at my suggestion
he agreed to pay three months rent in advance to help the move-
ment along by retaining one of the rooms as an office for the
I.B.W.A. Five rooms were rented for twenty-five dollars and
the I.B.W.A. took one of them at half the price or twelve and a
half dollars a month. Later we rented four additional rooms at
fifteen dollars making the total rent for nine rooms forty dollars
of which nearly a third was paid by the I.B.W.A.

As national secretary of the I.B.W.A. I was supposed to have
my office there, but I could do most of my work at home so I
turned the room rented for office over to the club for a sitting
room. The I.B.W.A. contributed fifty-eight dollars to buy fur-
niture. Some other furniture was also bought by money con-
tributed by the men. The place was to be operated on a
fifty-fifty basis. All the profits and the expenses were to be
equally shared. Everyone agreed and the organization was ef-
fected.

Now the funny part comes. Quarrels soon arose over trifles,
and the members began calling each other grafters, and parasites.
I was even called a parasite though the only part I played was to
start the project and to encourage it to operate smoothly.
Before six months had elapsed the co-operative flat was a thing
of the past. The men sneaked away all of the furniture, that
of the I.B.W.A. as well as some that belonged to the members
of the group. They hauled it all away to furnish two small flats.
They also left an eighteen-dollar gas bill which the amateur
promoter had to pay.

The fifth and last experiment is not a case of co-operation but
it illustrates what might be expected from the hobo.

During the winter of 191 6 a St. Louis lady. Dr. Innis, con-
ducted a free dispensary for the "bos" who could not get hospital
treatment. Dr. How paid the bill for conducting the place.
Dr. Innis took a great interest in the migratory worker and
co-operated with us in working out a scheme by which the hobo
could save some money during the summer to hold him over the
winter months. She agreed to receive and hold in trust all the
money that any man would send to her and in the fall when he
came to town turn it over to him. We got out a lot of letters and

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

247

cards by which this correspondence banking could be carried on
and about a hundred and fifty men agreed that it was a good
scheme and that they would take advantage of it.

The result was amusing. Out of all the men who approved
the plan only one sent in any money. That one man sent in one
dollar. Shortly after Dr. Innis got a letter from this man. He
said he was "broke" and would like to have his dollar back.

My conclusion is that it is impossible to accomplish anything
along co-operative lines and in a democratic manner. I know
the hobo worker fairly well and I tried patiently to put over
schemes that they have, for the most part, favored, and I worked
with fair representatives of the group, but they will not co-
operate. They are suspicious and selfish when it comes to the
final test of their pet ideas. Co-operative schemes may work but
I don't think they will be a success along democratic lines.

FAILURE OF HOBO ORGANIZATIONS

Hobo organizations have never been a success
in this country. It is proverbial that conventions
of the I.W.W. and the I.B.W.A. have always been
veritable battle grounds of contending interests.
The I.B.W.A. has had four conventions during the
winter of 1921-22 and the summer of 1922 and they
all failed to accomplish anything because of jealousies
and bitter feelings. The convention in Cincinnati
on May Day, 1922, continued in session for three
days and did not get any farther than to argue about
the power of the convention to act in the name of
the I.B.W.A. One whole session was spent in a
quarrel about the election of a chairman.

Between the M.W.U, and the I.B.W.A. there is
considerable antipathy, yet the M.W.U. cannot
stand alone and will not co-operate with the parent
organization. The I.W.W. is against both, but even
in the I.W.W. there is a perpetual clash between the
migratory workers and the "home guards." Active

248

THE HOBO

and zealous organizers usually find room for com-
plaint against the office force.

The hobo, like other egocentric types, is suspi-
cious. The I.W.W. at its inception spent days argu-
ing whether the name of its chief officer should be
that of president. Some felt that to model the
organization after others would be a step in imitation
that might lead to other forms of imitation. Some
reasoned that most presidents of organizations they
had known were "parasites'' and their head officer
might become one also if given the name. The
hobo's suspicious attitude toward all organizations
and persons in power is not altogether without
ground. As a group the migratory workers usually
get the "short end" of every bargain they drive with
organized society. Every contractor they work for
"does" them for something. If he does not charge
them for tools they lost or destroyed he may charge
them for rent on a pair of boots or a blanket they may
have used. They may buy a job from some private
agency and later lose the job because the agency and
the contractor have an understanding to sell as many
jobs as possible. The hobo gets the opinion that
most officers in most organizations are playing the
game for what they can get out of it and he concludes
that it is the natural thing to do.

The mobility and instabihty of the hobo or tramp,
which is both cause and consequence of his migratory
existence, unfits him for organized group life. More-
over, he is propertyless, and therefore the incentive
of fixed ownership and fixed residence to remain
faithful to any institution is gone. While the man
of property secures himself best by associating with
his neighbor and remaining in one locality, the hobo

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

249

safeguards himself by moving away from every diffi-
culty. Then, too, the hobo is without wife and
child. His womanless existence increases his mobil-
ity and his instability.

In pointing out the repeated and seemingly inevi-
table failures of hobo organizations, the fact must
not be lost sight of that they are absolutely necessary*-*
to his social existence. Only in these social and
political organizations can the migratory worker
regain his lost status. Only in association with his
fellows can he again hope and dream of an ideal world
of co-operation. These organizations will either
survive repeated failures or take new forms, because
they satisfy this fundamental need of the social out-
cast for status. Then, too, in these groups, his
rebellious attitudes against society are sublimated
into a radical idealism. Were these organizations
destroyed, the anti-social grudge of the individual
would undoubtedly be reflected in criminality.

CHAPTER XVII

MISSIONS AND WELFARE ORGANIZATIONS

TN THE winter of 1921-22 there were twenty-five
/jL missions in the Hobohemian areas of the city.
This number tends to expand and to contract with
the increase or the decrease in number of men out
of work. The number of missions in the West
Madison Street section is larger than the number in
the South State Street and North Clark Street
regions combined. The influence of the Salvation
Army, which has outgrown the status of a mission,
upon similar organizations is profound. The names
of many of the missions suggest their origin in imita-
tion of this pioneer body in religious work for the
"down-and-outs": Christian Army, Samaritan
Army, Saved Army, Volunteer Rescue Army. The
names of other missions are as interesting: Bible
Rescue Mission, Cathedral Shelter, Helping Hand
Mission, Pacific Garden Mission, Sunshine Gospel
Mission.

The uniforms of the "armies" that make up the
working force of certain of the missions are often so
nearly alike that it is difficult to tell them apart. A
short time ago the Salvation Army brought suit
against the Saved Army to prevent it from using the
poke bonnets, the blue uniform, the song "The
War Cry" on the ground that they were so similar
to those of the Salvation Army that the public
was confused. It is claimed by representatives of
the Salvation Army that individuals contribute to
these other missions and "armies" under the im-
pression that the contribution is for the Salvation
Army.

>5o]

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

251

TYPES OF missions'

Aside from the religious work of the Salvation
Army and the Volunteers of America, three types of
missions are to be found in Hobohemia: (i) the
permanently established local mission, (2) the migra-
tory national mission, and (3) the "wild cat" local
mission.

i) The permanently established local mission
either owns its building or holds it on a long lease.
These missions are sponsored by some church or
by a board of directors composed of business men
of more or less local prominence. Not infrequently
these contributors are successful converts.

These local missions dispense charity in the form
of food, clothing, and beds for homeless men.^ They
differ, however, in their methods of relief as well as
in their policies of relief. One mission may care for
every man who asks for aid without question as to
his worthiness, another feels that better service can
be done by helping only those who are willing to
work, or those who are incapacitated for manual
labor. Only the verbose intoxicant is ever ejected
from the mission — all others may come and go as
they wish.

In the permanently established mission is found
the better type of mission worker who is compen-
sated by a definite salary rather than paid on a

' In the section on "Types of Missions" and "Permanent, Periodic, and
Temporary Converts/' the writer is indebted to material furnished by Mr. L.
Guy Brown from an unpubHshed study of "Missions in Chicago."

* One mission of this type on West Madison Street records that during the
year ending September, 1921, 56,718 homeless men visited the mission. During
this time 4,016 men knelt at the altar (were converted). Nearly 29,000 meals
were served to hungry and unemployed men, while 4,145 tickets were issued
which entitled the bearer to sleep at a flophouse or cheap rooming-house.

252

THE HOBO

commission basis. The permanent workers consist
of a superintendent and a secretary assisted by con-
verts who have made good, usually old men who use
the mission as a refuge. Still further help comes
from students of the various religious institutions
in the city and from the friends of the mission.

2) The national migratory missions may have
headquarters in Chicago or some other metropolitan
center with branches or sub-missions in nearby
towns and cities. These organizations are generally
financed by solicitations. Men and women are
employed to canvass places of business; to "drum"
on the streets and to make house-to-house calls.
This practice of drumming on the streets is known
as "ballyhooing." These solicitors receive, in most
cases, as much as 50 per cent of the amount they
collect, which greatly lessens the sum to be used for
the homeless men after the rent for the building,
the salaries of the men in charge, and other expenses
have been deducted from the remaining 50 per cent.

The shifting of these missions is proverbial. If
they are not moving from city to city they are moving
from one street to another, or from one location to
another on the same street. The workers are as
transient as the institutions themselves: migrating
back and forth between cities, and affiliating them-
selves first with one mission and then with another.
Often they are rural folk who, through urban mission
work, find expression for the wishes of adventure and
recognition. The fascination of the city has an
attraction for the migratory mission worker as for
the migratory laborer. They prefer this life, even
under adverse conditions, to any other field of service.
Others are veterans, who have been in mission work

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

253

for years with four or five different organizations in
as many cities.

3) The "wild cat" local mission, more or less
ephemeral in nature, springs up during some crisis
as an unemployment situation. Using the crisis
as an excuse for soliciting funds to aid the unem-
ployed, they operate for awhile, and when conditions
have been ameliorated, they go out of existence.
The workers, enthralled by a few months in the serv-
ice, then affiliate with another mission.

MAKING CONVERTS

The following narrative by an observer in the
Bible Rescue Mission one Sunday evening early in
April, 1922, describes the technique of conversion.

62. More than a hundred men were in the audience. The
night was cold and they were glad to be inside. Then, too,
there were rolls and coffee to be served after the meeting. Near
the close of the service the evangelist stept down from the stand
and asked if anyone in the audience wished to be prayed for.
Surely out of an audience of so many men, all sinners, someone
was concerned about his soul. All a man would have to do was
to raise his hand. That was easy; just beheve with all your
heart, raise your hand for prayer. It was worth taking a chance
on anyway. Three hands went up.

"That's fine! Three men have asked to be remembered
before the Lord. Is there anyone else ? Just one more, let's
make it four. Won't someone else raise his hand. Yes, there's
another hand. God bless you, brother. Now, will the four
men who raised their hands please stand ? "

This was more than they had bargained for, but they stood.
All eyes were on the four, all homeless men with the character-
istic beaten look. They were self-conscious and uncomfortable.
One of the men, somewhat older than the others, seemed to be
stirred by emotion.

"Now," continued the evangelist, "will the four brothers
who just stood up kindly come forward and kneel with us in

254

THE HOBO

prayer ?" There was a moment of hesitation. Finally, the old
man led the way. One of the others followed in a halting fashion.
A worker came down from the stand and escorted to the front the
younger of the remaining two. The fourth man sat down.
Another worker sat down beside him and pleaded with him for
some time. The man seemed to resent it at first, but at length
he yielded and was led into the circle. He had a sheepish look
as he slumped to his knees between two of the other converts.

Several of the workers began to labor with members of the
audience while the little circle kneeled on the floor and prayed.
No other converts were made so the meeting came to an end with
handshakes and congratulations for the new converts. Then
the lunch was passed and the tension relaxed.

Once outside I asked a man who had been inside what he
thought of the meeting. He laughed, "Oh, it's just like all of
them. I wanted to laugh out loud when I saw that old duck
get saved. He gets saved every winter. This winter he got
saved twice. He always manages to get saved in missions where
there is something to eat."

Women play a leading role in mission work. The
homeless man, who remembers his home and mother,
listens with respect to the prayers and appeals of
the women workers, and is stirred by the singing of
young girls. A religious plea by a woman of strong
personality will sometimes overwhelm a despondent
and homesick man.

63. Probably the most interesting event of our investigation
was a Salvation Army revival meeting, held in a little auditorium
behind the smoking room. Each Sunday night at about 8:00,
these services are held. Eight or nine girls, one the leader, and
one the pianist, make up the cast and chorus. When they are
ready the invitation is extended to those in the smoking room and
anywhere from six to thirty are likely to go into the "church."

The leader is a very versatile lady. She can utter a fervent
prayer, sing louder than all the rest of the girls together, play a
tambourine at the same time, and make a stirring appeal to
the audience that they "come forward to Jesus and be saved."
The girls join in the chorus, clapping as they sing. They have

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

255

all been saved, and testify as to the truth of the leader's words.
"Isn't that true, girls ?" and they all nod their heads in perfect
accord.

The old songs are sung, songs with simple tune and words as
"He's the Lily of the Valley." Anyone hearing these songs once
can join in, and all are asked to do so, but few respond. Yet
it is inspiring to see some forlorn looking bum concentrate on the
little book and sing forth earnestly, as some of them do. Very
few, however, wish to be saved. They are willing to attend the
services, and maybe to sing, but they will not volunteer to join
the army of God, and when personal solicitation is undertaken,
few remain in the room.

During warm weather the missions hold street
meetings. Headed by the mission band, the com-
pany marches outside to get the crowd. A few
songs are sung, several testimonials are given, and
the curbstone audience is invited to the hall.

Few mission workers are able to gather and
hold a crowd on the street. It is more difficult
to preach on account of the noise of passing street
cars and automobiles. The crowd outside is less
stable and not so considerate as the indoor audience.
Often the meetings are disturbed by drunken men
or by competing mission groups on the same street.
A mission band may not be able to gather any crowd,
even though hundreds of men are passing or loafing
on the streets. Sometimes their audiences will be
stolen by soap-boxers who start near by with the
"economic arguments.''

PERMANENT, PERIODIC, AND TEMPORARY
CONVERTS

Every mission has its permanent, periodic, and J
temporary converts; its ''alumni." Some of these
linger about the mission doing odd jobs, others go

256

THE HOBO

to work or into business, only returning occasionally
to bear testimony. Many of these have prospered
both spiritually and materially, and assist the mission
in its work. Certain missions celebrate the " spiritual
birthdays of these converts. A bouquet of flowers is
placed on the pulpit and a special program is arranged
in honor of the occasion. The anniversary of the
conversion of a permanent convert is a time of
rejoicing. The "twice-born man" bears his testi-
mony to the saving power of the gospel that snatches
*'a brand from the burning," and asks the prayers of
the saints that he may continue "faithful until the
end." Each of the "saved" who are present wears
a flower in the lapel of his coat and takes advantage of
the occasion to add his testimony.

The following typical cases of converts were
secured through hearing the testimony of men in the
missions and by later interviews with each of the
converts. The information given was also verified
by mission workers who knew the men.

64. H. M., in his own words, was once "one of the worst
jail birds and boozers" in this part of the country. For years,
he declares, he was never sober. His arrival home usually-
meant the beating of his wife. At the end of every month he
was in debt to the saloon keeper. He gravitated from one house
to another unable to pay his rent, until his family was living in
an old delapidated shack. His religious transformation changed
the whole situation. He is now in business for himself. He is
considered one of the most competent and rehable in his field.
He and his wife work at the mission and are among its largest
financial contributors.

65. About twenty years ago T. S., a typical "down-and-out,"
wandered into a Chicago mission. He had deserted his family
in an eastern state and started on the bum. Exposure and
"booze" had almost completely enervated him. He was dirty,
unshaved, and in rags. His visit to the mission led to his

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

257

conversion and subsequently to reconciliation with his wife and
three children. He is now superintendent of a business concern
in the city.

66. P. W., a man of foreign birth and a graduate from one
of the leading universities of his native country, became addicted
to drink, deserted his wife, and leaving her in dire need came to
this country. He became so low a bum that he was taking his
food from garbage cans in the alleys of Chicago, spending every
cent he could get for "booze." He was so debilitated from
alcohol, exposure, and lack of nourishment when he came to the
mission that he was hardly able to walk. He was converted and
restored to health. His wife later joined him. He became
nationally known as a worker in missions.

67. Some years ago a young lad left his home in Germany
and came to the United States. His associates here were persons
who spent their leisure time in dissipation. One morning he
awoke after a drunken night and decided to go down on West
Madison Street with the bums where he thought he belonged.
He despaired of life. He wandered into one of the missions to
get warm and was converted. Although he had a meager educa-
tion he is now studying in one of the religious institutions of
the city with the expressed purpose of doing religious work.

68. P. D. came into the mission drunk one night and was
converted. Several times previous to this he had been thrown
out for disturbing the meeting. According to his own statement
he entered the mission one time and was "saved and stayed
saved." He is now general labor foreman for a large construction
company.

Of course there are temporary converts who be-
come victims of their old environment. For awhile
they go straight, but eventually they yield to "the
world, the flesh, and the devil/' Some periodic con-
verts kneel before the altar every year and each time
go out with renewed determination to avoid sin, but
they often succumb the first time they are subjected
to temptation. The mission workers expect this
periodicity of conversion with some of these men just
as they expect the winter.

258

THE HOBO

"Backsliders" are usually well meaning men but
weak. Any convert who remains on the "stem"
is likely to become a "backslider." The emotional
nature of many of these men may induce a mood of
sincere repentance, but it is difficult to keep the
resolution to reform.

69. L. S. is a youth of the city. He is twenty-three. His
parents are strict German Lutherans and he spent several years
in a Lutheran parochial school. He left home over a month
ago (April, 1922) because of some trouble he had with his folks.

Shortly after he entered the Mission on Madison

Street where he "got religion" but in a week he "back sHd."
He was melted into consenting and was rushed to the front and
"saved" before he knew what had happened. After the men
on the outside laughed at him he "weakened." Now he feels
that there is "nothing to religion anyway," though he admits
that the mission worker at one time kept him out of jail.

MISSION BREAD LINES

During the winter of 1921-22, twelve of the
missions in Chicago, maintained "bread lines," that
is, dispensed food, as coffee and doughnuts, or a
bowl of soup and vegetables. The term "bread
line," used figuratively for "free lunch," originally
described the long lines of men during years of want
and unemployment waiting outside relief stations
for bread and soup.

Missions without "bread lines" claim that the
food is given as a bait to get conversions. They
hold that "meal ticket" converts lose their religion
as soon as they become economically self-sustaining.
The unregenerate homeless man looks down upon
the regular attendants at the mission, and accuses
them of getting converted for "pie card" reasons.
He calls them "mission stiffs," a term as uncompli-
mentary as for an Indian to be called a "squaw man."

A FREE LUNCH AT A MISSION

Jiy permission of the Il.-/fu,i- Ihtu.i I/,

A WINTER'S NIGHT IN A MISSION

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

259

WELFARE ORGANIZATIONS

The mission is not the only institution to which
the homeless man turns. Social-service agencies,
public and private, many of which are organized
primarily for family rehabilitation, have given assist-
ance to the homeless man.

The United Charities, although engaged chiefly in
work with families, has a homeless-men division.
During the year ending September 30, 1922, 1,026
non-family men received assistance. Of these, 629
were given material or personal service, and 397 were
referred to other organizations. The Jewish Social
Service Bureau also maintains a homeless men's
department which, in the year 1921, gave personal
and material aid to 1,333 men. During 1922, the
number of men helped fell to less than half this
number, largely as a result of the improved industrial
situation. The Bureau works in close association
with two Jewish sheltering-homes, which together
house about 70 men. Homeless men who apply for
assistance are cared for here until their cases are care-
fully investigated. The Central Bureau of (Cath-
olic) Charities, in conjunction with the Mission of
the Holy Cross, provides shelter and food for desti-
tute men, and aids them to become self-supporting.

The Chicago Urban League, organized to promote
co-ordination and co-operation among existing
agencies for the welfare of Negroes, maintains an
employment bureau for men out of work. During
the winters of 1920-21 and 1921-22, when thousands
of men' were without house accommodations, the
League took the lead in co-operating with churches

^ The officials of the League estimate that there were 7,000 homeless men
among the Negroes in the winter of 1921-22.

260

THE HOBO

and other organizations to secure temporary housing
quarters.

The hotels for homeless men maintained by the
Salvation Army and by the Christian Industrial
League have already been described/ In addition,
both organizations maintain industrial homes where
men are given temporary work and are helped to
become self-supporting.

The American Legion has been active in behalf of
unemployed ex-service men, many of whom are also
homeless men. Its work has consisted chiefly in
getting jobs for the unemployed, and in this it has
had the hearty co-operation of the newspapers. The
Legion Hall was turned over to homeless veterans
for sleeping quarters during the winter of 1921-22.

The Chicago Municipal Lodging House was first
opened on December 21, 1901. It provided free
temporary shelter and food for destitute, homeless
men. At first it was operated under the Depart-
ment of Police, but was transferred on January i,
1908, to the Department of Health, and later, on
April 17, 1 91 7, transferred to the Department of
Public Welfare. In its early history, the Municipal
Lodging House was fortunate in having as its super-
intendent men like Raymond Robins, James Mullen-
bach, and Charles B. Ball, who set high standards for
its administration.^ The Municipal Lodging House
met the severe test of the unemployment years of
1908 and 1914 by showing how its organization could
expand to meet extraordinary situations. For ex-
ample, while only 23,642 lodgings were given in 1907,

^ See pp. 27-28.

2 See Raymond Robins, "What Constitutes a Model Municipal Lodging
House," Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction (1904),
155-66.

HOW HE MEETS HIS PROBLEM

261

the number rose to 105,564 in 1908; and the 78,392
lodgings given in 1913 rose to 452,361 in 1914. The
Municipal Lodging House closed in 191 8-1 9 because
of lack of applicants during wartime prosperity, but
it did not reopen during the hard winters of 1920-21
and 1921-22. Many destitute men, who would
otherwise have been inmates of the Municipal Lodg-
ing House with the medical attention, sanitary sleep-
ing quarters, and other assistance for rehabilitation
which it offered, became instead "regular feeders"
at the "bread lines'' and permanent patrons of
Hogan's "flop." There seems to be no doubt that
the absence of municipal provision made for an
increase of promiscuous begging and injudicious
almsgivings.

Many other institutions and agencies regularly or
sporadically extend assistance to the homeless man.
Yet, in perhaps no other field of social work is there
more overlapping and duplication of effort, or so
low standards of service. For example, the missions
and some of the churches, working independently of
one another, boast that they feed and clothe the
needy, but they make little or no effort to distinguish
between those who do and those who do not deserve
assistance. Consequently, the missions lay them-
selves open to exploitation by the homeless man. A
constructive program for rehabilitation demands the
co-ordination of the efforts of all agencies now
engaged in serving his needs.

THE HOMELESS MAN AND RELIGION

The missions, and for that matter, the welfare
agencies are unpopular with the habitues of Hobo-
hemia. The hobo, in his songs and in conversation.

262

THE HOBO

shows unmistakably his aversion to all efforts to
remake his character or to reshape his destiny. This
feeling of antipathy is naturally strongest with the
adherents of the l.W.W. who come in competition
and conflict with the mission worker.

With full recognition of the cynical reaction of
the average hobo to the mission, it cannot be denied
that thousands of homeless men are converted every
winter, and that a certain proportion of these, how
large no one knows, lead permanently changed lives.
The mission touches the inner life of these men in a
way that no social agency or organization has ever
done, or perhaps can do.

Even the homeless man has aspirations above the
satisfaction of his physical wants; he desires to live
in a larger, more complete sense. The I.W.W., with
its radical program of changing "things as they are,"
appeals to the restless and rebellious spirit of youth.
But the broken man, or the old man who has given
up hope, finds comfort and peace in adapting himself
to "things as they are." Religion to him is just this
change of attitude, "making oneself right with God."
While the young man is confident that he can right
what is wrong in this world, the old man looks to the
next world to compensate for the inequalities and
injustice of present existence.

APPENDIXES

APPENDIX A

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
AND RECOMMENDATIONS

THIS study has pictured the life and the problems
of the group of homeless migratory and casual
workers in Chicago. It now remains to sum up
the findings of the investigation and to outline the
recommendations which seem to flow from the facts.'

FINDINGS

1. The homeless casual and migratory workers, while found in
all parts of the city, are segregated in great numbers in four
distinct areas: West Madison Street, Lower South State
Street (near the Loop), North Clark Street, and Upper
State Street (the Negro section).

2. The number of homeless men in these areas fluctuates greatly
with the seasons and with conditions of employment.

3. The concentration of casual and migratory workers in this
city is the natural result of two factors: (a) the develop-
ment of Chicago as a great industrial community with diver-
sified enterprises requiring a variety of unskilled as well as
skilled laborers, and (^) the position of Chicago as a center
of transportation, of commerce and of employment for the
states of the Mississippi Valley.

4. The homeless men in Chicago fall into five groups: (a) the
seasonal laborer, (l^) the migratory, casual laborer, the hobo,
(c) the migratory non-worker, the tramp, (d) the non-
migratory casual laborer, the so-called "home guard," (<?)
the bum. Groups ^, and e constitute what are known
in economic writings as "The Residuum of Industry." In
addition to these groups of the homeless casual and migra-
tory workers are the groups of seasonal laborers and
the men out of work, which expand and contract with
the periods of economic depression and of industrial
prosperity.

' The findings and recommendations of this study were prepared by the
Committee on Homeless Men of the Chicago Council of Social Agencies and its
report accepted by the Council.

[265

266

THE HOBO

5. The causes which reduce a man to the status of a homeless
migratory and casual worker may be classified under five
main heads as follows:

d) Unemployment and Seasonal Work: these maladjustments
of modern industry which disorganize the routine of life
of the individual and destroy regular habits of work.

b) Industrial Inadequacy: "the misfits of industry," whether
due to physical handicaps, mental deficiency, occupa-
tional disease, or lack of vocational training.

c) Dejects of Personality: as feeble-mindedness, constitu-
tional inferiority, or egocentricity, which lead to the
conflict of the person with constituted authority in
industry, society, and government.

d) Crises in the Life of the Person: as family conflicts, mis-
conduct, and crime, which exile a man from home and
community and detach him from normal social ties.

e) Racial or National Discrimination: where race, national-
ity, or social class of the person enters as a factor of
adverse selection for employment.

/) Wanderlust: the desire for new experience, excitement,
and adventure, which moves the boy "to see the world."

6. To satisfy the wants and wishes of the thousands of home-
less migratory and casual workers at the lowest possible
cost, specialized institutions and enterprises have been
established in Chicago. These include:

a) Employment agencies.

b) Restaurants and lodging-houses.

c) Barber colleges.

d) Outfitting stores and clothing exchanges.

e) Pawnshops.

/) Movies and burlesques.

g) Missions.

h) Local political and social organizations, as "The Indus-
trial Workers of the World" and the "Hobo College."

i) Secular street meetings and radical bookstores.

7. Chicago as the great clearing house of employment for the
states of the Mississippi Valley naturally and inevitably
becomes the temporary home of men out of work for the
entire region. The following appear to be the facts in
regard to the workers and the conditions of employment:

APPENDIXES

267

a) Fluctuations of industry, such as seasonal changes, and
of unemployment, force large numbers of men into the
group of homeless migratory and casual workers.

^) At the same time, the homeless migratory and casual
worker develops irregular habits of work and a life-policy
of living from hand to mouth."

c) Employment records indicate that the lower grade of
casual workers prefer work by the day, or employment
by the week or two, to "permanent" positions of three
months or longer.

d) The Illinois Free Employment offices, efficiently admin-
istered with simple but well-kept records and with
courteous treatment of applicants, placed 50,482 persons
in the year ending September 30, 1922, mainly in positions
in and near Chicago.

e) The private employment agencies dealing with the home-
less man, about fifty in number, which are, in general,
poorly equipped, with the minimum of record keeping
required by law and with inconsiderate treatment of
applicants, place about 200,000 men a year in positions,
for the most part, outside of Chicago.

/) The law relating to private employment agencies as
approved June 15, 1909, in force July 1,1909, and as
amended and approved June 7, 191 1, in force July i, 191 1,
appears not to be enforced in two points:

i) the requirement that sections three (3), four (4), and
five (5) of the law be posted in a conspicuous place in
each room of the agency; and

ii) the return to the applicant of three-fifths of the regis-
tration and other fees upon failure of applicant to
accept position or upon his discharge for cause.

8. The health and hygiene of the homeless migratory and casual
worker is of vital concern not only for his economic efficiency
but also because of the relation of his high mobihty to the
spread of communicable diseases.

9. The homeless migratory and casual workers constitute a
womanless group. The results of this sex isolation are:

a) No opportunity for the expression and sublimation of the
sex impulse in the normal life of the family.

268

THE HOBO

U) In a few cases, the substitution for marriage of free unions
more or less casual, usually terminated at the will of the
man without due regard to the claims of the woman.

c) The dependence of the greatest number of homeless men
upon the professional prostitute of the lowest grade and
the cheapest sort.

d) The prevalence of sex perversions, as masturbation and
homosexuality.

10. The attraction for the boy of excitement and adventure
renders him peculiarly susceptible to the "call of the road."
d) Hundreds of Chicago boys, mainly but not entirely of

wage-earning families, every spring "beat their way" to
the harvest fields, impelled by wanderlust, and the oppor-
tunity for work away from home.
h) Of these a certain proportion acquire the migratory habit
and may pass through successive stages from a high-grade
seasonal worker to the lowest type of bum.

c) The boy on the road and in the city is constantly under
the pressure of homosexual exploitation by confirmed
perverts in the migratory group.

ct) Certain areas of the city frequented by boys have been
found to be resorts and rendezvous for homosexual
prostitution.

11. While the majority of the homeless migratory workers are
American citizens of native stock:

d) They are in large numbers for practical purposes dis-
franchised because they seldom remain in any community
long enough to secure legal residence.

b) They constitute a shifting and shiftless group without
property and family, and with no effective participation
in the civic Hfe of the community.

c) According to statements from police authorities they
contribute but slightly to the volume of serious crime.

d) Both on the road and in the city, they are at all times
subject to arbitrary handhng and arrest by private and
public police and to summary trial and sentence by the
court.

e) The attitude of Chicago, like that of other communities
toward the homeless man, has been a policy of defense
intrusted to the police department for execution.

APPENDIXES

269

12. Social service to the homeless migratory and casual worker
has for the most part been remedial rather than preventive;
unorganized and haphazard rather than organized and
co-ordinated.

a) Professional beggars and fakers exploit public sympathy
and credulity for individual gain to the disadvantage of
the men who need and deserve assistance.

b) The missions and certain churches feed, clothe, and pro-
vide shelter for several thousand men during the winter
months.

c) The Dawes Hotel, the Christian Industrial League, and
the Salvation Army hotels provide lodging at a low charge.

d) The Salvation Army maintains the Industrial Home with
workshops which accommodate a limited number of men.

e) The United Charities and the Central Charity (Catholic)
Bureau, although concerned mainly with family relief,
give certain forms of assistance to the homeless man.

/) The Jewish Social Service Bureau maintains a depart-
ment for homeless men, which acts as a referring agency
to two shelter houses.

g) The American Legion and other patriotic organizations
have provided assistance of various types to the ex-
service man out of employment.

h) The Municipal Lodging House, which closed its doors in
191 8, has not been reopened, despite the evident need of
the winters of 1920-21 and 1921-22.

/) The Cook County agent provides free transportation to
non-residents to place of legal residence and refers
residents to Oak Forest Infirmary.

j) The county and city hospitals and dispensaries provide
free medical care.

k) Unco-ordinated effort of the organizations for service to
the homeless man has resulted in duplication of activi-
ties, a low standard of work, and the neglect of a construc-
tive program of rehabilitation.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The findings of this study indicate conclusively:
{a) that any fundamental solution of the problem is
national and not local, and {b) that the problem of

270

THE HOBO

the homeless migratory worker is but an aspect of
the larger problems of industry, such as unemploy-
ment, seasonal work, and labor turnover.

National Program

The committee approves, as a national program for the con-
trol of the problem, the recommendations suggested by the studies
on unemployment and migratory laborers contained in the Final
Report of the Commission on Industrial Relations (pp. 1 14-15;
103):

1. The enactment of appropriate legislation modifying the title
of the Bureau of Immigration to "Bureau of Immigration
and Employment" and providing the statutory authority
and appropriations necessary for —

a) The establishment of a national employment system,^
under the Department of Labor, with a staff of well-paid
and specially quahfied officials in the main offices at
least.

b) The licensing, regulation, and supervision of all private
employment agencies doing an interstate business.

c) The investigation and preparation of plans for the regular-
ization of employment, the decasualization of labor, the
utilization of public work to fill in periods of business
depression, insurance against unemployment in such
trades and industries as may seem desirable, and other
measures designed to promote regularity and steadiness
of employment.

2. The immediate creation of a special board made up of the
properly qualified officials from the Departments of Agri-
culture, Commerce, Interior, and Labor, and from the Board
of Army Engineers to prepare plans for performing the largest
possible amount of public work during the winter, and to
devise a program for the future for performing, during periods
of depression, such public work as road building, construction
of public building, reforestation, irrigation, and drainage of
swamps. The success attending the construction of the

^The United States Employment Service established in 1918 requires
adequate appropriations for its efficient functioning.

APPENDIXES

271

Panama Canal indicates the enormous national construction
works which might be done to the advantage of the entire
nation during such periods of depression. Similar boards
or commissions should be estabHshed in the various states
and municipalities.

3. The Interstate Commerce Commission should be directed by
Congress to investigate and report the most feasible plan of
providing for the transportation of workers at the lowest
reasonable rates, and, at the same time, measures necessary
to eliminate the stealing of rides on railways. If special
transportation rates for workers are provided, tickets may be
issued only to those who secure employment through public
employment agencies.

4. The estabHshment by states, municipalities, and, through the
Department of Labor, the federal government, of sanitary
workingmen's hotels in which the prices for accommodations
shall be adjusted to the cost of operation. If such working-
men's hotels are established, the Post Office Department
should estabhsh branch postal savings banks in connection
therewith.

5. The establishment by the municipal, state, and federal govern-
ments of colonies or farms for "down and outs" in order to
rehabilitate them by means of proper food, regular habits of
living and regular work that will train them for lives of use-
fulness. Such colonies should provide for hospital treatment
of cases which require it.

The Chicago Plan for the Homeless Man

For the local situation and for such action as lies in the hands
(a) of the citizens of this community, (l>) of the city of Chicago,
(c) of Cook County, and (d) of the state of Illinois, this com-
mittee recommends:

I. As A Program for Immediate Action —

I. T/ie establishment of a Municipal Clearing House for
Non-Family Men.

a) Purpose:

i) To provide facilities for the registration, exami-
nation, classification, and treatment of homeless

272

THE HOBO

migratory and casual workers in order, on the
basis of individual case-study,
ii) To secure by reference to the appropriate agency
emergency relief, physical and mental rehabilita-
tion, industrial training, commitment to institu-
tional care, return to legal residence, and
satisfactory employment.

b) Organization: The Clearing House will maintain the
following departments:

i) Information Bureau: to provide information in
regard to employment, public institutions, social
agencies, indorsed hotels, and lodging-houses, etc.

ii) Registration: by card, giving name, age, occupa-
tion, physical condition, reference, residence,
nearest relative or friend, number of lodgings,
disposition, and all other information.

iii) Vocational Clinic: to provide medical, psychiat-
ric, psychological, and social examination as a
basis of treatment.

iv) Records Office: to record findings of examination,
to clear with other agencies, local and national,
and to enter recommendations and results of
treatment.

v) Social Service Bureau: to provide for both immedi-
ate and after-care service for the men under the
supervision of the Clearing House.

c) Personnel: to consist of director, clerical force, inter-
viewers, social workers, and experts, as physician,
psychiatrist, psychologist, and sociologist.

d) Intake of Clearing House: registrants to be referred to
the Clearing House by:

i) Citizens^ to whom homeless men have applied for
relief.

ii) Missions^ where food or lodging have been
received by homeless men.

iii) Charities.

iv) Travelers' Aid Society.

v) Local organizations.

APPENDIXES

273

vi) Police Department: closing of police stations to
lodgers and provision for supply of such appli-
cants with tickets of admission to the Clearing
House; direction by police to the Clearing House
of persons found for the first time begging.

vii) Courts^ police stations^ House of Correction^ and
county jail: provision to every homeless man or
boy upon discharge with ticket of admission to
Clearing House guaranteeing three days' liberty
with food, lodging, and an opportunity for honest
employment.

e) Classification: As a result of examination in the
Vocational Clinic the men will be divided for treat-
ment into three groups: (i) boys and youths, (2)
employable men, and (3) unemployable men. The
unemployable will be further divided into: (i) the
physically handicapped, (ii) the mentally defective,
(iii) alcohoHcs and drug addicts, (iv) the habitually
idle, (v) the untrained, and (vi) the aged.

/) Treatment: Upon the basis of the preceding examina-
tion and classification, the men will be given the
following services:

i) Those in need of emergency relief, temporary
lodging, meals and bath, by the agencies in the
field and by the Municipal Lodging House
(when reopened).

ii) Those in need of clean clothes, free laundry
work at the Municipal Laundry (to be estab-
Hshed).

iii) Those who are proper charges of other communi-
ties and who may be better cared for there,
transportation from relatives or from Cook
County agent.

iv) Those in need of medical service, treatment at
the Cook County Hospital, Municipal Tubercu-
losis Sanitarium, or dispensaries, and observa-
tion at the Psychopathic Hospital.

v) For the unemployable physically disabled, edu-
cation as provided in the Chicago plan for the

274

THE HOBO

physically handicapped (under consideration by
the state in co-operation with private agencies).

vi) For the unemployable but physically able-
bodied, individual arrangements for industrial
education.

vii) For the aged and permanently physically dis-
abled, placement in the Oak Forest Home.

viii) For the employable, references with vocational
diagnosis and recommendation to the Illinois
Free Employment offices and other employment
agencies.

ix) For persons under the supervision of the Munici-
pal Clearing House, when desirable, individual
case work and after-care.

x) For incorrigible vagrants and beggars for whom
no constructive treatment is provided in the
program for immediate action (see constructive
treatment in "Program for Future Action")
commitment to the House of Correction.

g) Administration: The Clearing House to be admin-
istered by the city of Chicago under the City Depart-
ment of Public Welfare; the director of the Clearing
House to be also superintendent of the Lodging House
and of the Municipal Laundry and the Municipal
Bath House, a physician on full time to be assigned
by the City Department of Public Health, a psychi-
atrist and psychologist by the state criminologist of
the State Department of Public Welfare.

h) Advisory Committee: Under the auspices of the
Chicago Council of Social Agencies, an advisory com-
mittee to the director of the Clearing House be
organized to be composed of public and private
agencies and civic, philanthropic, commercial, indus-
trial, and labor organizations, co-operating with the
Clearing House.

/) Financing: An appeal to be made at once to the
city council for funds to equip and maintain the
Municipal Clearing House, Municipal Lodging House,
Laundry and Bath House, to provide for the following
budget:

APPENDIXES

275

Tentative Annual Budget for Caring Adequately for
Homeless Transient Men in Chicago

Clearing House

Rent of headquarters, including light and heat

Heat and light in free quarters

Equipment

Office supplies, stationery, printing, etc

Staff:

Superintendent

Assistant

Six interviewers and field workers

Two interviewers and field workers

Two stenographers

One stenographer

Physician (part time)

Psychiatrist (part time)

Director of vocational guidance

Janitors

Total

Maximum*

f, 2,500.00

I , 000 . 00

500.00

6 , 000 . 00
2,500.00
9,000.00

2 , 400 . 00

I ,800.00
I , 800 . 00
4,000.00
I , 800 . 00

$33 >3°o. 00

* The maximum budget represents expenditures in the event headquarters cannot
be secured free of rent, services of physician and psychiatrist cannot be secured from
city and Institute for Juvenile Research, and at a time when a full staff will be necessary.

2. The reopening of the Municipal Lodging House under the
following conditions (adapted from "Program for Model
Municipal Lodging House," by Raymond Robins):

a) Administration: under the City Department of Pub-
lic Health in close affiliation with the Clearing House
for Homeless Men.

b) Purpose: to provide free, under humane and sanitary
conditions, food, lodging, and bath, with definite
direction for such permanent refief as is needed for
any man or boy stranded in Chicago.

c) Registration and preliminary physical examination:
made in Clearing House a condition to admission.

d) Standard of service:

i) Sanitary building.

ii) Wholesome food.

iii) Dormitories quiet, beds comfortable and clean„

iv) First-aid treatment: vaccination, bandages and
simple medicaments furnished free.

276

THE HOBO

v) Isolation ward for men suffering from inebriety,
insanity, venereal diseases, etc.

vi) Fumigation of lodgers' clothing, including hat
and shoes, every night.

vii) Nightly shower bath required.

3. The establishment of a Municipal Laundry and a Munici-
pal Bath House by the city of Chicago: to be operated in
close affiliation with the Municipal Clearing House.

4. Utilization of existing facilities for industrial training:
Co-operation with existing educational institutions for
the vocational training of boys and youths and of the
physically handicapped, mentally defective, and industri-
ally inadequate who are unemployable but willing to
work. (See "Program for Future Action.")

5. Employment agencies:

a) The extension of the service of the Illinois Free
Employment office.

b) The enforcement of the law relating to private em-
ployment agencies: the requirement that sections
three (3), four (4), and five (5), of the law be posted
in a conspicuous place in each room of the agency;
and the return to the applicant of three-fifths of the
registration and other fees upon the failure of appli-
cant to accept position or upon his discharge for cause.

c) The further study of private employment agencies
and of labor camps in order to provide the homeless
man with adequate protection against exploitation.

6. Public health and housing:

a) The further building of sanitary workingmen's hotels
with low charge for accommodations.

b) The maintenance and raising of standards of cheap
hotels in Chicago through rigid inspection and tighten-
ing of requirements.

c) Medical examination, inspection, and supervision of
men in flops, together with vaccination and hospital-
ization of needy cases.

7. Vagrancy Court: the reorganization of the Vagrancy
Court for the hearing of cases of incorrigible vagrants
and beggars on the basis of the investigations of the
Clearing House.

APPENDIXES

277

8. Protection of the boy:

a) Prevention of aimless wandering through the provi-
sion of wholesome and stimulating recreation, through
the extension of all activities for boys, and through the
further development of vocational education and
supervision. The Vocational Guidance Bureau of
the Board of Education should be removed to an
area of the city free from unwholesome contacts.

b) An educational campaign organized through the Mid-
West Boy's Club Federation should be carried on in
all the boys' organizations in Chicago showing the
danger of "flipping" trains and playing in railroad
yards. The National Safety Council has a great deal
of material which could be used in such a campaign.

c) Co-operation with such organization as the Brother-
hood of Railway Trainmen, the special police organ-
izations of the railroads, the Lake Carriers Associa-
tion, and automobile clubs, in a program to prevent
boys wandering away from home. Pamphlets should
be prepared for distribution, asking for co-operation
and enforcement of working certificate regulations
in this and other states, child labor laws, juvenile
court laws, etc.

d) The enhstment officers of the army, navy, and marine
should demand the presentation of a birth certificate
in all cases in which they doubt the age of the
appHcant.

e) The co-operation of the managers of the hotels and
lodging-houses in an effort to keep boys under seven-
teen out of the hotels in the Hobohemian areas, or at
least to use their influence in preventing boys and
men from rooming together.

/) Because most of the contacts the boy has with tramps
are unwholesome, the police should not permit boys
to loiter or play in the areas most frequented by the
tramp population; namely. West Madison Street,
South State Street, North Clark Street, and adjacent
territory. Parents ought to be made aware of the
nature of the contacts the boy has with the tramp in
these areas and in the parks.

278

THE HOBO

g) The assignment of special plain-clothes policemen
experienced in dealing with vagrants to the parks and
other places in which tramps congregate. They
should be instructed to pick up and hold in the Deten-
tion Home any boy under seventeen years found in
company with a tramp.
k) More strenuous effort should be made to occupy the
leisure time of boys who frequent the districts in
which the tramps congregate. It is the boy with
leisure time who is the most susceptible to the unwhole-
some contacts. Supervised recreation should be
carried on to an extent that boys who play in Hobo-
hemian areas might be attracted to other sections.
When school is not in session a more extensive pro-
gram of summer camps might help.
/) Since the Juvenile Court of Cook County is equipped
to investigate the cases of vagrant boys under seven-
teen in Chicago, and return them to their homes, all
vagrant boys apprehended by anyone in the daytime
should be reported to the chief probation officer,
Juvenile Court. Vagrant boys over seventeen should
be directed to the Clearing House.
j) After five o'clock vagrant boys under seventeen should
be turned over to the police who will take them to
the Detention Home, from which home they will be
taken to the office of the chief probation officer the
first thing in the morning.
k) Whenever a boy under seventeen is taken in custody
by the police, because of contact with tramps, or
whenever a boy is held as a complaining witness
against a tramp, he should always be reported to the
Juvenile Court. It is the responsibility of the court
to put the boy in touch with some proper individual
or agency, so that he will be adequately supervised
and befriended in the future.
9. Publicity and public co-operation: the education of the
public through news items in the daily press and editorial
comment; public co-operation through tickets of
admission to the Clearing House providing food and
lodging in the Municipal Lodging House constantly to

APPENDIXES

279

be distributed through societies, institutions, hotels,
business offices, churches, clubs, housewives, and other
citizens.

II. A Program for Future Action —

1. That a bond issue be submitted for approval to the voters
of the city of Chicago providing for the erection of ade-
quate buildings for a Municipal Clearing House, Munici-
pal Lodging House, and Municipal Laundry and Bath
House.

2. That an Industrial Institute be established by the state
of Illinois in Chicago for the vocational training of the
physically handicapped, mentally defective, and indus-
trially inadequate, who are unemployable, but willing
to work.

3. That a State Farm Colony for Industrial Rehabilitation be
established by the state of Illinois for the compulsory
detention and re-education of unemployables, such as
beggars, vagrants, petty criminals, who are unwilling
to receive industrial training.

4. That a Department of Industrial Training of the House of
Correction be opened, pending the establishment of the
State Farm Colony for Industrial Rehabilitation, for
the commitment and re-education of unemployables,
such as beggars, vagrants, and petty criminals.

APPENDIX B

DOCUMENTS AND MATERIALS

CHAPTER I. HOBOHEMIA DEFINED

115. Summary of a Study of Four Hundred Tramps^ Nels Ander-
son, summer, 1921.

124. An evening spent on the benches in Grant Park; description
of men and their talk.

135. A Study of Eight Cases of Homeless Men in Lodging Houses^
R. N. Wood, December, 1922.

145. An unpubHshed paper on the hobo, "Along the Main Stem
with Red," Harry M. Beardsley, March 20, 1917.

146. Chicago's Hobo Area^ Sherman O. Cooper, December, 1917.
157. Chicago's Hobo District^ Melville J. Herskovits, December,

159. Comparative statistics for the three wards in which Hobo-
hemia is located, 1910-20.

CHAPTER II. THE JUNGLES: THE HOMELESS MAN ABROAD

I. "A Day in the Jungles," A. W. Dragstedt, a hobo who
knows the jungles.
76. "Job Hunting via Box-Car in the Northwest," Hobo News^
Bill Quirke, September, 1921.

CHAPTER III. THE LODGING HOUSE: THE HOMELESS
MAN AT HOME

2-3. Recital of an evening spent by Nels Anderson in a flop-
house, April, 1922.
70. Statistics: Bridewell population, lodging-house patrons,

registered voters.
79. Report of Visit to Ten Gambling Houses in Hobohemia^ Nels

Anderson, January i, 1923.
105. Casual worker, ex-soldier, twenty-eight, few days in town,

lost money in gambling-house.
151. A Dozen Hotels in the Loopy George F. David, August, 1922.

CHAPTER IV. "getting BY " IN HOBOHEMIA

4. Jewish hobo, parasitic philosophy, middle-aged, begs from
Jewish agencies in all cities.

[281

282 THE HOBO

5. Transient dreamer, twenty-seven, known to many agencies
in different cities.

6. Boy in teens, Jewish, moves with ease from agency to
agency, good solicitor.

7. City bum, twenty-four, petty robber, works occasionally,
jail experience.

8. "Fat," a panhandler with a self-justifying philosophy,
works on favorable jobs.

9. Englishman, forty-one, paralyzed arm, alcoholic, mendi-
cant, was a bricklayer.

89. Faker, Bulgarian, forty-five, plays deaf and dumb, "works"
restaurants.

90. Home-guard bum, sixty-nine, works at odd jobs, often
mendicant, drinks some.

95. Ex-soldier, funds about gone, going East for work, clean,
sober, "working" charities.

97. Boy tramp, eighteen, left home to avoid school, wants to
be engineer, works.

98. Two young men temporarily without money and work,
adjusted in a few days.

102. City bum, thirty-five, talkative, lazy and unkempt, mendi-
cant much of time.

103. Away from family for work, gets money from wife, loafs,
later returns home.

104. Jewish tramp, sells papers, tin worker, served time in jail
for wife desertion.

111. Loafs, fat, unattractive, works some, not welcome home;
his family send him money.

112. Well-to-do sister ashamed of him, sends him money; he
calls it "borrowing."

113. Beggar with a philosophy, condemns peddlers who beg part
of time, works occasionally.

123. Spanish war and world-war veteran, forty-six, compensa-
tion, tries to go to school.

131. Description of life with the "slum proletariat" by one of
them.

152. Mendicancy in Chicago^ Melvin L. Olsen, December, 1919.
155. Case Studies of Beggars in Chicago^ Joseph Arnsdorff,

December 16, 1919.
161. Statement from the secretary of the Mid-City Commercial

Association on the hobo problem.

APPENDIXES 283

CHAPTER V. WHY DO MEN LEAVE HOME ?

10. Pioneer hobo and tramp, "played all the games," fifty-six,
blames self for misspent life.

11. Belgian, fifty-eight, coal miner, lumber jack, Chicago in
winter, single, seldom penniless.

12. Pioneer hobo, fifty-one, perhaps dying, miner's "con,"
away from home (Ohio) thirty years.

13. Migratory worker, single, fifty-six, ever restless, mines,
sea, harvest, sheep shearer.

14. Anemic man, lung trouble, textile worker, light work only,
hopes open air will help.

15. Beggar, peddler, one leg, industrial accident, justifies
begging and drink.

16. Migrant, would settle down, drinks, loses jobs, single,
getting old, health failing.

17. "Dope" user, weak, anemic, poorly clad, dirty, beat way
from Boston.

18. Old man, seventy-eight, poor-farm and hospital experience,
mendicant, lives on fifty or sixty cents a day.

19. Restless young man, twenty-four, no permanent desires,
carpenter, capable, sober, congenial.

10. Restless young worker, easily bored by the monotony of a
job,

26. Irish, ex-soldier, ex-sailor, twenty-seven, sings, wants to
study music, ex-secretary of "Hobo College."

27. Feeble-minded, left home in war time, odd jobs, in town
often, often in missions.

28. Pessimistic, imaginative, unstable, about forty-five, fair
worker.

29. Periodical drinker, quarrelsome when drunk, otherwise
good worker.

30. College man, twenty-seven, ex-salesman, left wife, homo-
sexual experience, avoids work.

31. Chronic drinker, stockyards worker, seldom migrates,
many arrests, away from wife twelve years.

32. Boy tramp, sixteen, on way to Texas, from Ohio, parents
dead, only brother a soldier.

33. Left home when jilted by girl, too sensitive to return, very
transient.

34. Returned home after jail experience, humiliated, left home,
away for several years.

284 THE HOBO

35. Ex-soldier, as small-town boy left home in crisis, stayed
away to make bluff good, twenty-two.

36. Boy left home in fear of punishment from father, returns
occasionally.

37. Migrant because of trouble over woman, about thirty,
dare not return, radical.

38. Became migratory to avoid paying alimony, dare not
return, about forty.

39. Boy tramp, nineteen, egotist, traveled much, works Httle,
gambles, jail record.

40. Oldest boy becomes runaway, twenty, other boys in family
follow, dislikes father.

CHAPTER VI. THE HOBO AND THE TRAMP

41. Scotchman, thirty-two, single, ex-soldier, sailor, nurse in
winters, casual in summer.

42. Deck hand summers, migrant to South in winter, single,
generally sober.

43. Carpenter, casual, often discharged, would settle but losing
efficiency by drink.

44. Old man, fifty-eight, plasterer, fair worker but casual, has
ceased migrating, sober.

45. One-time harvest hand, seldom leaves Chicago, peddles
trinkets, gambles.

46. Romantic tramp, revels in wandering, carries tiny camera,
seeks notice, does not work.

86. Recital of experiences of boy tramp, now a doctor in Chicago.

91. Russian, able-bodied hobo, about thirty-five, clean, sober,
works in and near Chicago.

92. Boy, eighteen, on way home (Indiana) from winter in
West, plans to leave tramp life.

100. Congenial, irresponsible man of twenty-five, sober, clean,

very transient, works as porter.
109. Runaway boy from Hammond, Indiana, sixteen, in Hobo-

hemia looking for work, very worldly wise.

CHAPTER VII. THE HOME GUARD AND THE BUM

47. City bum, twenty-three, in missions when broke, works as
teamster, "got" religion once.

48. Wife deserter, drinks, loiters on "stem," odd jobs, formerly
pig killer.

APPENDIXES 285

49. Ex-pugilist, single, forty-five, now mission "stiff," works
on docks in summer, alcoholic.

50. Health ruined by drink, thirty-two, light jobs, baker,
farms in summer, Chicago much of time.

72. Crippled in industrial accident, sixty-two, family grown,
would care for him, drinks.

78. Classification of types of homeless men submitted by Mr.

Wirth of Jewish charities.
127. Classification of tramps, hobos, and other types of home-
less men by Dr. Ben L. Reitman.

CHAPTER VIII. WORK

73. Pioneer type, fifty, seldom comes East, miner, prospector,
lumber jack.

77. Man forced to be idle by hard times, learned to get along,

later refused work.
83. Old man, fifty, single, winters in Chicago, farm jobs in

summer, drinks some.

93. Laborer, migrant, forty-four, becoming radical on account
of work shortage, had some money.

94. Ex-soldier, twenty-seven, without funds but hopeful,
hustling worker.

96. Boy tramp, twenty, reformatory record, traveled much in
three years.

114. Brought cattle from Wyoming to Chicago, lost all with
women and drink, still happy.
•,134. Study of Employment Agencies and Labor Placement Prob-
lems^ E. H. Koster, August, 1922.

158. The Unemployed and the Unemployable in Chicago^ Rupert
R. Lewis, December, 1917.

160. Statistics of the Chicago Free Employment offices for the
year ending September 30, 1922.

CHAPTER IX. HEALTH

106. Ex-soldier, released from army hospital, gets compensation,
drinks much.

107. Italian bricklayer, rheumatism, gets aid from union,
family in Italy, sons in war.

108. Mental case, talks to self, attracts much attention on
street, loud and vulgar.

286 THE HOBO

117. Teamster, thirty-six, raised in slum, unemployable with
locomotor ataxia, peddles pencils.

121. Chicago boy, does not go home, needs medical attention
for feet and eyes, gambles.

122. Boy tramp, great wanderer, homosexual, intelligent, two
years on road.

139. Mortality statistics for Hobohemia for 1922, non-resident
cases.

147. Communication of Dr. Herman N. Bundesen, commis-
sioner of public health, concerning the health and medical
care of the homeless man in Chicago.

CHAPTER X. SEX LIFE

51. Middle-aged woman, character on West Madison Street,
feeds cats, scolds everyone.

52. Street faker, aspires to be actor, jail experience, free-union
experience.

53. Boy tramp, going West, travels without difficulty but is
often accosted by perverts.

54. Homosexual case, boy involved, man died in jail while
awaiting trial.

55. Bum who works on docks and boats, involved in boy case.
Bridewell for term.

81. Four boys in Grant Park, each with jail and tramp experi-
ence.

82. Case of boy in teens, tramp, "flirting" with men in Grant
Park.

87. Cases of Venereal Disease Due to Homosexual Injection^ Dr.
Ben L. Reitman.

110. Boy tramp, nineteen, exploited by perverts, decidedly
feeble-minded, on way home (Indiana).

120. Young man, twenty-two, well dressed, homosexual prosti-
tute, loafs in Grant Park.

125. Observations upon the unnatural attachments of some
homeless men and boys.

141. Wife deserter, left home to enable her to divorce him.

142. Statistics showing marital condition of homeless men.
153. The Sexual Life of Habitual Wanderers^ J. L. Handelman,

August 22, 1 91 9.

APPENDIXES 287

CHAPTER XI. CITIZENSHIP

56. Case of a transient voter showing difficulty hobo has of
voting.

57. Hobo's affair with police in Kansas, hobo bitter against
police.

58. University of Iowa student and police, fair observer, has
been hobo, letter to writer.

59. Recital of hobo and private police in Ohio, narrator has
settled in Chicago.

80. Report of visit to police court, hobos tried at rate of one

a minute, August 28, 1922.
85. Report of Two Weeks' Commitment to the Cook County Jail,

Nels Anderson, May, 1922.

149. Case of police persecution.

162. Newspaper clippings on the death of Martin Talbert in a
Florida convict camp.

CHAPTER XII. HOBOHEMIAN PERSONALITIES

22. Marxian socialist, soap-boxer, dogmatic and undiplomatic,
would educate "slaves."

25. Dreamer, poet, migrant, critic, very changeable, good

family, single, ex-soldier.
75. Pamphlet on Mike Walsh published by himself, states his

policies and achievements.
126. Character sketch of J. E. How, "Millionaire Hobo," also

correspondence with Nels Anderson.

CHAPTER XIII. THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF THE HOBO

23. Tries to write saleable songs and novels, sober but gambles,
single.

116. Leader in hobo organization, writes for Hobo News, carries
I.W.W. card.

119. Hobo philosopher, carrys bundle, sells pamphlets about
self, sleeps in parks.

129. Thirty-one copies of the Hobo News containing various
types of hobo literature.

150. Manuscript on "What the Hobo Reads," Daniel Horsley.

CHAPTER XIV. HOBO SONGS AND BALLADS

130. Collection of hobo songs and poems made by Nels Anderson,
forty-one selections.

288

THE HOBO

CHAPTER XV. THE SOAP BOX AND THE OPEN FORUM

21. Soap-boxer, scientific bent, takes self and message seriously,

calls it "education."
24. Single-tax advocate, about fifty, living away from family,

sells Ford's Weekly.

60. Notes on an afternoon's series of talks on the soap box on
Madison Street.

138. Debate, "Hobo College" v. students from the University
of Chicago, "Kansas Industrial Courts," April 12, 1923.

140. Study of ''Hobo College" in Chicago y Charles W. Allen
(teacher at college), 1923.

CHAPTER XVI. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS

61. Co-operative movements among hobos, experiences of
John X. Kelly, now in Chicago.

74. Financial statement of the I.W.W., May and June, 1922.
84. Conversation with an I.W.W. who was once a steady
migratory worker, old soldier.

CHAPTER XVII. MISSIONS AND WELFARE AGENCIES

62. "Visit to Bible Rescue Mission," Nels Anderson's experi-
ence, spring, 1922.

63. Salvation Army Revival, Sherman O. Cooper.

64. Case of "X" at the Bible Rescue Mission, bears public
testimony to former badness.

65. Ex-bum and wife deserter, graduate foreign university,
steady man now.

66. Mission worker, "saved" twenty years ago, was alcoholic
and a failure, in business now.

67. German, Madison Street bum, came into mission to get
warm, got religion, left old life.

68. Ex-drunkard, often thrown out of mission, finally got
converted and is a new man.

69. Young man, mission "stiff," easily converted, became a
"backslider" next day.

71. Wife deserter, mission hanger-on, clean, erect, active but
avoids work.

99. Letter by Bill Quirke to Hobo News on missions in Los

Angeles. He assails missions.
118. Ex-soldier in Legion headquarters, trying to get job on
strength of army experience.

APPENDIXES

289

143. Study of Missions and Mission Characters, L. G. Brown,
1923.

156. A Study of Missions, H. D. Wolf, August, 1922.

APPENDIX A. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS

128. Unpublished materials by Nels Anderson, covering his
study of 400 tramps, 230 typewritten pages.

144. Study of no Runaway Boys in Chicago Detention Home,
F. C. Frey and B. W. Bridgman, 1922.

148. "Outline of Program for the Prevention and Treatment of
Vagrancy," prepared by the Committee on Relief of the
Chicago Council of Social Agencies, and submitted to the
Executive Committee of the Council, June 13, 191 8.

154. Responses to requests for information on the homeless
man problem from social agencies in the larger American
cities.

APPENDIX C

BIBLIOGRAPHY

HISTORY AND SOCIOLOGY OF WANDERLUST AND VAGRANCY

Aydelotte, Frank, Elizabethan Rogues and Vagabonds ("Oxford

Historical and Literary Studies"). Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1 9 13. Pp. 187.
Florian, Eugenio, / Vagabondi Studio Sociologico-guiridicOy

Parte prima^ UEwluzione del Vagabondaggio. Torino,

1897. Pp. 1-124.
Hutten, John Camden, The Book of Vagabonds and Beggars.

Translated and printed in England by Hutton, i860.
JoFFROY AND DupouY, Fugues et Vagabondage. Paris: Alcan,

1909. Pp. 368.

Marie, A. A., and Meunier, R., Les Vagabonds. Paris: Giard

and Briere, 1908. Pp. 331.
Mariet, "Le vagabondage constitutionnel des degeneres"

(continued article), Annales medicopsychologique, 1911-12.
Mayhew, Henry, London Labour and the London Poor. London :

Griffin, 1862. Pp. 504.
Pagnier, Armand, Du Vagabondage et des Vagabonds^ Etude

Psychologique^ Sociologique et Medico-legale. Lyons, France:

1906.

Parker, Carlton H., The Casual Laborer. New York: Har-
court. Brace & Howe, 1920. Pp. 199.

Ribton-Turner, Charles J., A History of Vagrants and Va-
grancy and Beggars and Begging. London: 1887. Pp. 720.

Speek, Peter A., "The Psychology of the Floating Workers,"
Annals of the Amer. Acad, of Pol. and Soc. Science (Phila-
delphia), LXIX, 72-78.

Tannenbaum, Frank, The Labor Movement. New York:
Putnam, 1921. Pp. 259.

Thanet, Octave, "The Tramp in Four Centuries," Lippincotts^
XXin (May, 1879), 565.

Tug WELL, Rexford G., "The Gypsy Strain," Pacific Monthly
Review^ HI, 177-96.

WiLMANNS, Karl, Zur Psychopathologie des Landstreichers .
Leipzig: Barth, 1906. Pp. 418.

WiLMANNS, Karl, "Psychoses among Tramps," Centralblatt
fUr Nervenheilkunde^ December, 1902.

[291

292

THE HOBO

THE LABOR MARKET AND INDUSTRIAL MOBILITY

Baker, Oliver E., Seed Time and Harvest^ Bull. United States

Dept. of Agric.^ No. j8j^ March, 1922.
Brissenden, Paul F., "Measurement of Labor Mobility,"

Jour, of Pol. Econ.^ XXVIII (June, 1920), 441-76.
Brissenden, Paul F., and Frankel, Emil, "Mobility of

Industrial Labor," Pol. Science ^uar., XXXV (December,

1920), 566-600.

Devine, Edward T., "The Shiftless and Floating City Popula-
tion," Annals of the American Academy of Soc. and Pol.
Science, X (September, 1897), 149-64.

Fry, Luther C, "Migratory Workers of Our Industries,"
World's Work, XL (October, 1920), 600.

Immigration Commission, Reports of. The Floating Immigrant
Labor Supply {Immigrants in Industry), 25 parts, XVIII,
331-525. Senate Reports, Washington, 1911.

Lescohier, Don D., The Harvest Worker, Bull. United States
Dept. of Labor, No. 1020, April, 1922.

Lescohier, Don D., The Labor Market. New York: Mac-
millan, 191 9. Pp. 338.

Slighter, Samuel H., Turnover of Factory Labor. New York:
Appleton, 1 91 9. Pp. 460.

the problem of unemployment and vagrancy

Beveridge, W. H., Unemployment: A Problem of Industry.

London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1909. Pp. 317.
Bliss, W. D. P., What Is Done for the Unemployed in European

Countries. United States Labor Bull. No. yd (1908), pp.

741-934-

Booth, William, The Vagrant and the Unemployable. London:
1909. Pp. 79.

Dawson, W. H., The Vagrancy Problem. London: P. S

King & Son, 1910. Pp. 270.
Hunter, Robert, Property. New York: Macmillan, 1912.

Pp. 380.

Kelly, Edmond, The Elimination of the Tramp. New York:

Putnam & Sons, 1908. Pp. iii.
Laws of Various States Relating to Vagrancy.
Laubach, Frank C, Why There Are Vagrants. New York:

University of Columbia Press, 1916. Pp. 128.

APPENDIXES

293

Lewis, Burdette G., The Offender^ and His Relations to Law
and Society. New York: Harper, 192 1. Pp.380.

Lewis, O. F., "Vagrancy in the United States," Proceedings of
the National Conference of Charities and Corrections (1907),
pp. 52-70.

Marsh, Benjamin C, "Causes of Vagrancy and Methods of
Eradication," Annals of the Amer. Acad, of Pol. and Soc.
Science^ Vol. XXIII, No. 3, pp. 445-56. Philadelphia:
1904.

Massachusetts Association of Relief Officers, Report on Best
Methods of Dealing with Tramps and Wayfarers^ 1901.

"The Men We Lodge," Report of the Advisory Social Service
Committee of the Municipal Lodging House. New York
City: Dept. of Public Charities, 191 5. Pp. 42.

Nichols, Malcolm, "National Aspects of the Transient Prob-
lem," The Family^ III (June, 1922), 89-91.

OsTWALD, Hans Otto, Die Bekdmpfung der Landstreicherei.
Stuttgart: R. Lutz, 1903. Pp. 278.

Report of the Commissioner of Public Affairs. Portland, Ore.:
Wood Yard, 191 5.

Report of the Mayor s Committee on Unemployment. New York
City: 1917. Pp. 132.

Wolfe, Albert B., The Lodging Problem in Boston. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1906. Pp. 200.

THE I.W.W. AND THE CASUAL LABORER

Brooks, John Graham, American Syndicalism. New York:

Macmillan, 1913. Pp. 264.
Brissenden, Paul F., The I.W.W.: A Study of American

Syndicalism. New York: University of Columbia, 1920.

Pp. 438.

HoxiE, R. F., "The Truth about the I.W.W.," four, of Pol.

Econ.^ XXI (November, 1913), 785-97.
I.W.W. Song Book. Chicago: The Equity Press, 1922.
Preamble and Constitution of the I.W.W. Chicago: General

I.W.W. Headquarters, 1921. Pp. 69.
St. John, Vincent, The I.W.W. ^ Its History^ Structure and

Methods. Chicago: The Equity Press.
Tridon, Andre, The New Unionism. New York: Huebsch,

1913. Pp. 198.

294

THE HOBO

MATERIALS FOR THE STUDY OF THE HOBO AND THE TRAMP

Brown, Edwin A., " Broke^' the Man without a 'Dime. Chicago:
Brown & Howell, 1913. Pp. 370.

Davies, William H., Autobiography of a Super-Tramp. New
York: A. A. Knopf, 1917. Pp. 345.

Ellis, Havelock, Studies in the Psychology of Sex: Sex Inversion.
II, 391. Philadelphia: Davis, 1915.

Forbes, James, *' Jockers and the Schools They Keep," Charities
Survey, XI (1903), 432.

Flynt (Willard), Josiah, My Life. New York: Outing Pub-
lishing Co., 1908.

Flynt (Willard), Josiah, Tramping with Tramps. New York:
Century, 1899. Pp. 398.

Howard, Oliver Otis (Maj. Gen., U.S. Army), "The Menace
of Coxyism," North Amer. Rev., CLVIII (1894), 687-96.

^Kemp, Harry, The Cry of Youth. New York: Mitchell,

Kennerley, 1914. Pp. 140.
\Kemp, Harry, Tramping on Life. New York: Boni & Live-
right, 1922. Pp. 438.

Knibbs, H. H., Songs of the Outlands. New York: Houghton,
Mifflin Co., 1914. Pp. 73.

Lindsay, Vachel, Handy Book for Beggars. New York: Mac-
millan, 1916. Pp. 205.

London, Jack, The Road. New York: Macmillan, 1907.
Pp. 224.

London, Jack, War on the Classes. New York: Macmillan,
1905. Pp. 278.

McCooK, J. J., "A Census of Tramps and Its Revelations,"

Forum, XV, 753.
McGregor, Tracy W., Twenty Thousand Men. Detroit:

McGregor Institute, 1922. Pp. 29.
MuLLiN, Glen, "Adventures of a Scholar Tramp," Century

Magazine, Vol. CV (February and March).
Service, Robert W., The Spell of the Yukons. New York:

Barse & Hopkins, 1907. Pp. 99.
Wyckoff, W. a.. The Workers: The East. New York: Scrib-

ners, 1897. Pp. 270.
Wyckoff, W. A., The Workers: The West, New York: Scrib-

ners, 1898. Pp. 380.

APPENDIXES

295

STUDIES OF THE HOMELESS MAN IN CHICAGO

Anderson, Nels, "Cases Studies of Homeless Men in Chicago"
(typewritten manuscript in office of Chicago Council of
Social Agencies and Department of Sociology, University
of Chicago).

Anderson, Nels, "The Juvenile and the Tramp," Journal of

Criminal Law and Criminology^ Vol. XIV (1923-24).
"The Chicago Municipal Lodging House for Men," in the Report

and Handbook of the Department of Health of the City of

Chicago (1911-18), pp. 1076-81.
"Fifty Cheap Lodging Houses," First Semi-Annual Report of

the Department of Public Welfare of Chicago (March, 191 5),

pp. 66-73.

Foley, R. W., "The Shifting Population of Homeless Men and
the Cheap Lodging House" (typewritten manuscript of
twenty-nine pages in Department of Sociology, University
of Chicago).

Report to the Mayor and Alderman by the Chicago Municipal
Markets Commission on a Practical Program for Relieving
Destitution and Unemployment in the City of Chicago^ De-
cember 28, 1914.

Robins, Raymond, "What Constitutes a Model Municipal
Lodging House," Proceedings of the National Conference of
Charities and Correction (1904), pp.

Solenberger, xAlice W., One Thousand Homeless Men. New
York: Russell Sage Foundation, 191 1. Pp. 374.

Stead, William T., If Christ Should Come to Chicago} Chicago:
Laird & Lee, 1894. Pp. 463.

^The first chapter describes the homeless-man areas of 1893.

INDEX

"A No. I," loo

Adler, Herman M., 73

Agencies, conflicting policies of, 15

Alcoholism, 66, 67, 134-35

American Express, 166

American Legion, 260

Ashleigh, Charles, 205

Association of hobo with women, 138

Associations: I.B.W.A., 230, 235-40;

I.W.W., 230-35; J.P.A.,ix; M.W.U.,

230

Atkins, Brigadier J. E., 171, 180-81
Attitude of perverts, 148

Ball, Charles B,, 260
Ballot, hobo regard for, 153
Barber colleges, 37-38
Barrel-house, 27
Begging, 47, 49, 50
Bills of fare on "stem," 34
Bloch, Iwan, 144
Boarding companies, 130-31
Bookstore, 38
Borrowing, 49

Boy tramp, and perversion, 145; and

wanderlust, 83
Boyd, Charles J., 120
Boys and tramp life, 85
Bread lines, 258
Brennan, Pat, 208
"Bughouse Square," 9-10
Bum, the, 98

"Carrying the banner," 53
Catholic charities, 259
Christian Industrial League, 27-28,
260

Chicago, a winter shelter, 12-13
Chicago labor exchange, 12, 110
Chicago plan for homeless men, 271-79
Chicago Urban League, 259
Civil authorities and tramp, 163-64
Clearing house for homeless men, 122,
136

Clothing stores, 3 5-36
"Coffee an'" level, 40
Cooking in jungles, 22-23
College," "Hobo, 172, 173, 174, 175,
177, 227, 237

Construction work, 107

Court experience of hobo, 165-66

Criminal, hobos not, 164-65

Crises in life of person, 77-79

Crop moving, 107

Cubicles or "cages," 30

Dawes, General C. G., 28
Day in the jungles, 21-25
Dragstedt, A. W., 25 n., 171, 177-78,
212

Drug addicts, 67-68, not hobos, 69

Educating the proletariat, 219

Egocentricity, 74-76

Ellis, Havelock, 144

Employment agencies, comparison of,

1 15-17; private, 111-12; public,

1 14-16

Employment service, need of, 1 22
Evangelists and soap-boxers, 217

Faking, street, 43
Farmer-Labor Party, 1 52
Flops, co-operative, 238-39
Flynt, Josiah, 94, 146
Fortune-tellers, 39
"Free-lance" speakers, 216, 218
Free-union marriages, 141-42

"Getting by," a game, 57, meaning

of, 40-41
Giovannitti, Arturo, 201
Grafts, old and new, 44
Grant Park, in summer, 1 1
Greenstein, "Mother" 139, 171, 183-

Handicapped men, 125-28
Harvey-Dammarell hotels, 28-29
Harvey-McGuire hotels, 28
"Hat trick," the, 45-46
Hazards of casual work, 1 29
Health Department, 131, 132, 133
Healy, William, 70
Hill, Joe, 208, 209

Hobo, definition of, 87-89; and drink,
135; and exposure, 136; health in

[299

300

THE HOBO

town, 131-33; hostility to in small
town, 26; names for, 93; nativity
of, 150-51; origin of, 88; pioneer,
and frontiersman, 92; poor beggar,
49; and religion, 262; status of,
167; voting, 151-52; what he
reads, 187-89; worker, 91

Hobohemia, defined, 3

"Hogan's Flop," 31-33

Home, why men leave, 61 fF.

Home guard, 96-97; types of, 100-101

Homeless men, and the law, 154;
mostly unmarried, 137

Horsley, Dan, 171, 175-77

Housing problem, 39

How, James Eads, 88, 172, 174, 175,
239

I.B.W.A., 230, 235-40; Holding Com-
mittee, 237-38; origin of, 235-36;
program of, 236-37

Industrial attractions, 62; fishing,
107; ice-harvesting, 108; lumber-
ing, 108; sheep-shearing, 107-8

Industrially inadequate, 65

Industry, changes in, 62-63; hazards
of, 65-66

I.W.W., 230-35; literature list, 187-
88; methods and appeal, 232-34;
origin of, 230; periodicals, 191 ;
program, 231; treatment in Chi-
cago, 235; treatment by Ku Klux
Klan, 191

"Jack rolling," 5, 51-52

Jewish Social Service Bureau, 259

Job hunting, 109

Jobs sold, estimate of, 1 1 1

Jockers, 103

Johnson, Glenn R., 72

Jungle, buzzard, 103; a day in, 21-
25; democracy in, 19; laws of,
20-21; location and types of, 16-
17; on lake front, 10; trial in,
24-25; womanless, 18

Juvenile Protective Association, ix

Kelihor, T. T., 160
Kelly, John X., 171, 173-74, 242,
243-46

Kemp, Harry, 196, 199
"Killing time," 215-16
Klein, Nicholas, 88
Knibbs, H. H., 198

Lady barbers, 38

Langsman, Charles W., 171, 178-79
Laubach, F. C, 126
Leadership in Hobohemia, 184
Lescohier, Don D., 119
Library privileges, 185
Life, loss of, 161-62
Light work, 129
Living, cheap in city, 13
Lodging-houses, municipal, 127, 134,

260-61; quasi-charitable, 27-28;

sanitary conditions of, 131-32;

types of, 27

Medical attention, free, 13; on the
job, 130

MeUs, Lewis, 206

Mental tests, 71-73

Migratory Workers' Union, 230; 240-
41; aims and objects, 24I, 247

Miller, H. A., 82 n.

Missions, 250-58; converts of, 253-
54; competition between, 250;
migratory national, 252; perma-
nent local, 251; soUciting funds,
252; "wild cat," 253

Mission stiffs, 98, 103

Mobihty, complicates problem, 15;
effects of, 120, 248-49; of handi-
capped men, 128

"Mooching," 50

Movies and burlesque, 37

Mullenbach, James, 260

Municipal Lodging House (Chicago),
260-61; (New York), 127, 134

Mushfaker, 99

Myers, Dr. Johnston, 171, 181-83

National program, 270
Negro hobos, 8

New York Central Railroad, 166
News, Hobo, 177, 185, 186, 187, 192

Odd jobs, in city, 41
Old men, 69

INDEX

301

"One Big Union," 231
Open forums, 226-28
Organizations among hobos, 230;
failure of, 247-49

"Panhandling," 50

Park, R. E., 82 n.

Partnerships among hobos, 147

Passing the hat, 223

Patriotism, 151

Pawn shops, 36

Peddling on street, 42

Personal degradation, 57, 65

Personality, defects of, 72-76

Perversion among tramps, 144-47

Pintner and Toops, 71, 72 n.

Poems and ballads, 194-214; "Away
from Town," 199-200; "Beaten
Men," 205; Bum," "The, 201-2;
Bum on the Rods and the Bum on
the Plush," "The, 202; Dish-
washer," "The, 20I-2; Gila Mon-
ster Route," "The, 194-96;
"Harvest War Song," 208; Hobo
Knows," "The, 203; Hobo's Last
Lament," "The, 212; "Men That
Don't Fit In," 204; "No Matter
Where You Go," 213-14; "Nothing
to Do But Go," 198-99; "One
Day; Some Way," 205.; "Opti-
mism," 213; "Portland County
Jail," 21 1 ; Preacher and the Slave,"
"The, 210; Slave Market," "The,
206-7; Tramp," "The, 209; Tramp
Confession," "The, 196-98; Wan-
derer," "The, 206

Police, encounters with hobos, 156-
58; methods of, 155, 160, 164;
private, 155; types of, 154-55

Poorhouse, aversion of hobo to, 56;

Population, turnover in Hobohemia,
13-14

Program for future action, 279
"Proletariat," 176
Property, destruction of, 161
Prostitutes, "second raters," 143
Prostitution, 142-43
Punk, 99, 103

Queen, Stuart A., 26 n.

Racial discrimination, 81
Radical press, 186
Raid on jungles, 23-24
Railroad yards, 8

Reitman, Ben L., 87, 102, 134 n.,

143, 171, 172-73
Religion, practical, 182; and love,

179; and work, 180
Restaurants and lunchrooms, 33-35;

sanitary conditions of, 35
Robins, Raymond, 260
Rountree, B, Seebohm, 64 n.

Sabotage, 121
Saloons, 38-39

Salvation Army, 27-28, 250, 260

Scissor Bill, 99

Seasonal fluctuations, 63

Seasonal workers, 89-90

Second-hand clothing, 35-36

Service, Robert W., 203

Sex isolation of hobo, 144, 149

Seymour, James, 200

Short jobs, 1 18-19

Sickness and disease, 133

Soap-boxers, ethics and tactics of,
222-24; and opinion, 228-29; his
role on stand, 229; versatility of,
224-26

Social center for hobos, ii; in the

jungles, 16, 26
Solenberger, Alice W., 9 n., 71, 87,

125-26

Solidarity y the Industrial^ 190-91
State farm colony, 277
Stealing, petty, 51

Street speaking, 216-20; lectures, 220

Strike jobs, 120-21

Summary and findings, 265-79

Terman, L. M., 71 n.

Testimonies of converts, 256

Thornburn, Charles, 205

Tramp, the, 93-95

Tramping, a man's game, 137

Tucker, St. John, 87

Tugwell, Rexford, 82

Types, rendezvous of, 5, 7, 9; of
homeless men, 105; numbers of
each in Chicago, 105-6; of peddlers,
42-43

302

THE HOBO

Unemployables, 104
Unemployment, 64-65
United Charities, 259

Vagrancy, explanation of, 85-86; in

small towns, 163
Van de Water, John, 171, 179-80
Vaudeville, 37
Venereal disease, 133-34

Walsh, Michael C, 171, 174-75,
242

Wanderlust, 82-83

Welfare organizations, 259-60

Westbrook, Warden Wesley, 165

White, Henry A., 203

Winter, "getting by" in, 52-53

Women and homeless men, 138-42

Work, a national problem, 121-22

"Working the folks," 46-47

Writings of hobos, 188-90

Younger hobos, 1 40-41

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
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